Standardizing demographic data in EHRs can help boost patient-matching, that is, linking patient records from different providers so clinicians have a more complete picture of patient health information, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.
Researchers examined whether using consistent formats for demographic data, such as addresses, names and dates of birth, could improve patient matching rates. They used four manually reviewed datasets that included a random selection of matches and nonmatches.
They found standardizing addresses using the U.S. Postal Service's format can improve patient match rates by up to 3 percent. When standardized formats were used for both addresses and last names, match rates improved by up to 8 percent.
They also found that standardizing formats for telephone numbers, birth dates and Social Security numbers did not make a significant difference to patient match rates.