In an effort to find a universal solution for accurately matching patients with their healthcare information, The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) will launch a $1 million challenge early this summer on the HeroX platform, co-founded by XPRIZE CEO Dr. Peter Diamandis. The purpose of this challenge is to increase the success rate of patient ID matching from 80 to 100 percent.
Currently, there is no universal solution exists for matching healthcare patients with their unique, personal healthcare information. Concerned stakeholders, such as hospitals, healthcare systems, clinicians and caregivers, health plans and electronic health record vendors have resorted to developing individual, proprietary patient identity and matching solutions. The patchwork of different solutions inhibits continuity of care across different systems and care settings, poses major challenges for patient safety, and results in hundreds of millions of dollars in unnecessary costs.
It is estimated that the current accuracy rate of patient ID matching at even the most sophisticated hospitals is only around 80 percent, which means that there is a 1 in 5 chance that a patient’s safety, privacy or security will be compromised. A recent government study indicated that errors in patient identification and matching can lead to misinformation at the point of care, leading to serious treatment consequences and increasing the possibility that the patient will suffer from a preventable medical error, endure greater hardship and/or risk of death.
As CHIME works to raise the $1 million prize money, it has put a task force of healthcare IT leaders in place charged with assigning challenge guidelines and winning criteria.
According a 2013 study published in the Journal of Patient Safety, it was concluded that in the United States, over 400,000 hospital patients die from preventable medical errors, every year. Preventable medical errors are the third largest killer of Americans, next to cancer and heart disease.
For more details,visit https://herox.com/PatientIDChallenge.
