A group of senators recently introduced new legislation aimed at improving healthcare providers' patient record matching capabilities and COVID-19 response coordination, according to an Aug. 11 FedScoop report.
The bill would give hospitals and testing labs access to the U.S. Postal Service's address formatting tool to use across their IT systems. Online retailers already have access to the tool, which could in turn increase EHR matches by tens of thousands per day, according to the American Medical Informatics Association.
"Giving healthcare providers access to the Postal Service's existing address tools would help save lives by making it easier to conduct COVID-19 contact tracing," said Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., bill co-sponsor, the publication reports.