In an April 5 letter, 25 health IT and medical associations asked Congress to support the use of patient data matching in the Labor, Health and Human Services Education, and Related Agencies spending bill for 2018.
Congress currently prohibits HHS from using funds to assign patients unique health identifiers. However, the signing organizations — including the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society — are asking to clarify the language to enable ONC and CMS to support private-sector patient-matching initiatives.
The 25 organizations say patient matching will improve healthcare safety and quality, by ensuring patients are connected to their health information across the care continuum.
"The absence of a consistent approach to accurately identifying patients has resulted in significant costs to hospitals, health systems, physician practices and long-term post-acute care facilities, as well as hindered efforts to facilitate health information exchange," according to the letter.
Click here to view the letter.