It’s no secret that medication use and health care costs have dramatically increased during the previous decade in the U.S. According to the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcome Research (ISPOR), adherence is “the extent to which a patient acts in accordance with the prescribed interval, and dose of a dosing regimen.” Adherence to medication therapy is often one of if not the most critical aspect of medical treatment, particularly the treatment of chronic conditions such as diabetes and hypertension. Perhaps even more alarming is that 20% of nonadherence cases are for prescriptions that never get filled!
The rising use of mobile healthcare apps to increase medication adherence is helping reduce costs and improve health outcomes.
Despite the importance of adhering to a medication schedule, medication nonadherence is a serious problem costing Americans anywhere between $100 billion to $289 billion a year with the World Health Organization (WHO) recently stating that the average nonadherence rate is 50% among those with chronic illnesses. Furthermore, research indicates that failure to follow prescription instructions causes approximately 125,000 deaths per year and up to 10% of all hospitalizations. The consequences of nonadherence include: Read more
RightPatient® released its first eBook covering the topic of how to make sense of patient identification technology options in healthcare.
Accurate patient identification in healthcare is often underrated as one of, if not perhaps the most important functions to ensure the right care is delivered to the right patient. The unfortunate rise in medical identity theft and fraud coupled with the increased scrutiny of the healthcare industry to provide safer environments for patients has pushed many hospitals and medical facilities to reassess patient identification protocols and investigate the adoption of technologies that will help increase authentication accuracy, prevent the creation of duplicate medical records and overlays, and eliminate medical identity theft and fraud. More hospitals are moving away from traditional, paper based identification checks and towards technologies that automate authentication and rely more on proving identities based on “what you are,” compared to “what you have.” Read more
https://www.rightpatient.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/RP-eBook-cover-for-blog-post-011915.png10801080John Traderhttps://www.rightpatient.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/RightPatient-Logoup.pngJohn Trader2015-01-26 19:42:082015-03-05 09:15:03New eBook: Understanding the Differences Between Patient Identification Technologies
Look no farther for a sensationalized depiction of biometric identification technology than the Tom Cruise movie “Minorty Report.”
Most people confuse iris recognition with retinal scanning that beams visible light into the eye to capture individual biometric credentials.
Packed with scenarios that stretch the truth on how biometric technology actually works, the movie has unfortunately become a rallying cry for those opposed to the technology as an example of just how invasive the technology is to our personal privacy. While there are arguments to be made on both sides on whether biometric identification technology is a privacy detractor or a privacy boost, one thing is true: In the real world, front end biometric hardware devices work much differently than what we see on the big screen or when flipping through the pages of a science fiction novel. Which brings us to the topic of iris recognition.
When most people hear the words “iris recognition” they immediately confuse the technology with “retinal scanning,” a completely separate and totally different biometric modality. As our community already knows, iris recognition and retinal scanning are two completely different biometric modalities each operating under separate functional parameters and each using a different method of capturing individual biometric characteristics. Most people associate iris recognition with something that looks like this:
The picture above shows a retinal scanner beaming visible light into the human eye to read the unique physiological characteristics of the retina, located in the back of the eye. Despite it’s extremely high identification accuracy, retinal scanning is widely considered to be one of if not the most invasive biometric modality and an impractical technology for commercial use in high throughput environments. Conversely, iris recognition uses a sophisticated digital camera to capture your photograph, which maps unique data points of your iris (located in the front of the eye) and uses that information to create a unique identity template which is used on subsequent identification attempts and is also an extremely accurate .
Iris recognition does not beam any visible light into your eyes, is 100% safe to use, and does not perform anything even close to a “scan” – it is simply a digital photograph (albeit much more sophisticated that pictures we take with our digital cameras and cell phones). Here, we see a patient at a hospital using an iris camera for identification – notice how there aren’t any lights or lasers beamed into their eyes during the photograph capture process:
Iris recognition cameras do not beam any lights or lasers into the human eye. They simply take a digital photograph.
Why is it important to know that iris recognition does not “scan” your eyes? Like it or not, the proliferance of biometric technology for individual identification is a reality that we all must come to terms with. In fact, if you have never participated in a biometric identification deployment, chances are at some point you will considering the rapid pace in which many industries are adopting the technology as a tool to increase security, create efficiencies, eliminate waste and fraud, and raise accountability and productivity. In healthcare, many hospitals and medical facilities have already deployed iris recognition biometrics for patient identification, and are expanding their deployments to provide the technology for accurate patient ID at each and every touchpoint along the care continuum.
In the healthcare industry specifically, understanding what to expect when you participate in a biometric identification deployment is a key factor in accepting the technology as a key tool to help stop medical identity and fraud at the point of service and to eliminate duplicate medical records which are a direct threat to your safety. So the next time you visit the hospital or a medical facility that has deployed iris biometrics for patient identification, you are now empowered with the information on how the front end technology works and can rest assured that you are not being “scanned” in any way, shape, or form. It’s a photograph, not a scan!
What other common misunderstandings about biometrics may cause you trepidation?
https://www.rightpatient.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/RightPatient-is-safe-for-patient-identification-in-healthcare.jpg600800John Traderhttps://www.rightpatient.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/RightPatient-Logoup.pngJohn Trader2015-01-14 06:00:232022-08-26 10:23:01Removing the Word "Scan" from Iris Recognition for Healthcare Biometrics
We have spent a lot of time during the past few years discussing how establishing accurate patient identification in healthcare with biometrics is the most effective technology to prevent:
The use of biometrics for patient identification in healthcare helps HIM departments spend time on more value added services.
What often goes unnoticed is the impact that biometric patient identification solutions have on Health Information Management (HIM) departments. HIM departments carry tremendous responsibility on their shoulders in any healthcare organization acting as the entity in charge of providing and processing medical records containing patient information from pre-admission through discharge and afterward until the record is complete. This process includes:
— Preparing, indexing, and imaging all paper medical records — Analyzing the health record for accuracy and to ensure it is completed — Releasing patient information and protections assigned for closed-adoption, drug treatment, alcohol treatment, sexual, and behavioral health issues — Coding for research, reimbursement, and provider report cards – coding personnel are responsible for abstracting diagnoses and procedures from medical records and assigning them a numerical code to ensure accurate billing and for data collection — Analyzing active medical records to ensure all diagnoses are accurately documented — Upon a client’s discharge from the hospital, process documents to provide relevant client demographic and medical information to the designated aftercare agencies to facilitate follow-up and continuity of the client’s care
Often considered the “medical record gatekeepers” of the healthcare industry, HIM departments perform one of the most critical functions in the healthcare work flow by ensuring the safety of patients through medical record accuracy. HIM also helps to facilitate fast and efficient payments under strict time constraints for services rendered, and spend a lot of time correcting patient records because healthcare facilities want to be paid on the care provided to patients in a timely fashion.
A large part of medical record reconciliation is resolving duplicate medical records and overlays (when two patients medical histories appear on one medical record) which consumes Full Time Equivalents (FTE’s), and swallows up resources that could otherwise be spent on more value-added tasks that directly impact revenue cycle management and limits penalties.
Litigation is also an important point to stress. A patient’s chart must be able to withstand the scrutiny of a legal proceeding if a patient were to sue a healthcare facility lending even more importance to the work of HIM to ensure medical record accuracy. There is also the issue of reporting. The HIM department is directly responsible that medical records are accurate for quality reporting which has a direct impact on reimbursement and avoiding penalties imposed by the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) that range from readmissions to demonstrated improvement in patient outcomes. Keep in mind the new healthcare paradigm – stressing the quality vs. the quantity of services provided, a huge shift change that carries additional responsibility and an increased sense of urgency to ensure data accuracy at any healthcare facility.
Which brings us to the use of biometrics for accurate patient identification on the front end.
Why is it important to reduce HIM FTEs spent on reconciliation of duplicate medical records and overlays? As noted earlier, many hospitals have expanded responsibilities vis-à-vis Meaningful Use, EHR implementation, and meeting Affordable Care Act requirements, and it has become disadvantageous to continue devoting any time at all to duplicate medical record and overlay reconciliation. Biometric patient identification solutions open the door to re-allocation of HIM FTEs to more critical functions such as coding, reimbursement, and reporting. Simply put, implementing biometrics during patient registration is opening the door for HIM departments across the industry to provide a larger and more productive support role to meet the shifting sands of reimbursement and address the need to move towards quality vs. quantity of care.
Hospitals should be actively seeking to deploy patient matching and patient identification technologies that eliminate barriers (e.g. duplicate medical records, overlays) and maximize HIM productivity to shift FTEs away from continuous master patient index (MPI) cleanup and more towards coding, quality review, reimbursement, and other areas. Many hospitals are already re-aligning their HIM departments in the wake of EHR implementation, and we expect to see more of the same for those using biometrics for accurate patient identification.
What other ways can the use of biometrics for patient identification reduce HIM FTEs?
https://www.rightpatient.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/How-Accurate-Patient-Identification-Impacts-Health-Information-Management.jpg445800John Traderhttps://www.rightpatient.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/RightPatient-Logoup.pngJohn Trader2015-01-08 21:05:322021-05-23 07:31:21How Accurate Patient Identification Impacts Health Information Management (HIM)
