The Office of the National Coordinator is partnering with industry experts to draft policies standardizing addresses in EHRs to promote patient matching.
Standardizing patient addresses and improving patient matching will support safety, interoperability, privacy and security, decreased costs, and more, according to a June 16 news release.
The push to standardize address comes after studies, such as the 2019 study conducted by researchers at Bloomington-based Indiana University, uncovered how using the United States Postal Service's address format can improve patient matching by up to 3 percent.
The ONC is consulting a range of stakeholders to ensure there is a broad agreement on the new standard. The American Health Information Management Association and the ONC are also developing a guide for the new rule containing information to manage patient addresses accurately and timely.