Biometrics-for-patient-identification-and-infection-control-and-hygiene-in-healthcare

Patient Hand Hygiene Report Casts Shadow on Contact Dependent Biometric Patient Identification

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Patient Hands May Pose Greatest Threat to Hospital Acquired Infections

Is the heightened awareness on ensuring that doctors, nurses, and other clinical staff wash their hands as part of strict hospital infection control protocols missing an important element? According to a new research report published by NBC News, hospitals would be well served to address another important demographic inside a facility that could perhaps pose an even greater threat to patient safety: patients themselves.

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A recent NBC news article reported that patients carry superbugs on their hands raising concerns about whether contact dependent biometric patient identificaiton solutions support hospital infection control.

Researchers at the University of Michigan released details of a report that found “nearly a quarter of patients they tested had some sort of drug-resistant germ on their hands when they were discharged from the hospital…” The results support the theory that many healthcare experts have long asserted – patients are a major threat to spreading the germs of superbug infections. Researchers tested for a number of bugs, and reported:

“We swabbed the palm, fingers, around nails of patients’ hands. The tests were done when patients were admitted, two weeks later, and then once a month for the next six months.” (Source: http://nbcnews.to/1Xv5Rck)

The report goes on to say that patients frequently bring multi-drug-resistant organisms on their hands to a hospital environment and drew the conclusion that this increases the probability that these organisms are likely to be transmitted to other patients and healthcare workers. A concluding thought of the report was:

“Despite concerns raised by some recent studies, patient hand-washing is not a routine practice in hospitals to date.” (Source: http://nbcnews.to/1Xv5Rck)

Patient Hand Hygiene Raises Concerns About Contact Dependent  Biometric Patient Identification Solutions

As more hospitals investigate the use of biometrics for patient identification, they quickly discover that hardware options available include contact-dependent devices (fingerprint, palm vein) and non-contact devices (iris and facial recognition). Is it a healthcare organization’s responsibility to evaluate the hygiene risks of asking patients to physically touch a biometric device for identification? Do hospitals have an obligation to weigh the risks of hospital-acquired infections that could materialize from using contact-dependent biometrics for patient identification?

The NBC News report certainly calls into question the hygiene risks of deploying any type of technology solution that requires physical contact with a patient and could lead to the spread of germs and disease. Our hope is that hospitals assessing the use of biometrics for patient identification will take this into account and understand the risks involved when using contact-dependent devices and the responsibility to sterilize the device after each use if the decision is made to deploy this type of hardware.

There are many factors to consider when evaluating the use of biometrics for patient identification in healthcare. As we learned from the NBC News report, supporting hospital infection control to prevent the spread of germs and disease by using contactless biometric patient identification is important to consider.

Curious to know more about how to assess the differences in patient identification technology? Download our eBook for more details. 

review of biometric patient identification educational session at 2016 HIMSS conference

Takeaways on Biometric Patient ID from HIMSS 2016 Conference

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review of biometric patient identification educational session at 2016 HIMSS conference
review of biometric patient identification educational session at 2016 HIMSS conference

Several educational sessions at the 2016 HIMSS conference were dedicated to patient ID in healthcare.

Like most who attended last week’s annual HIMSS conference in Las Vegas, I was a bit overwhelmed at the amount of information, activities, and traffic swirling around the Exhibit Halls and lecture rooms. It’s difficult to not get swallowed up among 40,000+ attendees and even more hard to block out the flashing lights and unbelievably cool technology on display in order to focus on what matters most, but I had a set agenda to follow and stuck to my plan. This was the third HIMSS conference I have attended and I continue to be amazed at the outstanding job that HIMSS staff does to pull off this event each year, which only seems to keep growing in size, scope, and complexity. Hat tip to HIMSS staff who work tirelessly on making this event successful!

Buried among the central themes of advancing interoperability, cybersecurity, population health, consumer and patient engagement, and connected health, there were a handful of educational sessions dedicated to patient identification in healthcare including a presentation by Dr. Raymond Aller, a Clinical Professor at the University of California entitled: “Patient Identification: Biometric or Botched?”

This was the only educational session at the conference that I could see which was 100% dedicated to the use of biometrics for patient ID in healthcare and it was well attended – I counted approximately 75 people who showed up for the session. 

Dr. Aller presented what I felt was a fair, unbiased analysis of the patient identification landscape in healthcare and a thorough analysis (including strengths, weaknesses, and deployment examples) of biometric patient identification modalities available to hospitals and health organizations. Here is a brief overview of Dr. Aller’s central themes, and what he presented:

  1.  Text based patient identification is simply no longer an efficient or safe way to ID patients: Dr. Aller began his presentation by listing the consequences of failing to properly identify a patient including the patient safety, legal, and liability issues and public relations nightmare misidentification can create. He then demonstrated the drawbacks and limitations of text based patient ID calling it “obsolete” and pointing out that in 2016, hospitals and healthcare organizations can no longer afford the risks associated with this form of identification. He even went so far as to question the viability of continuing to use a master patient index (MPI) as a patient data repository, calling it a “dangerous” and “obsolete” concept.
  2. Healthcare fraud and medical identity theft: Dr. Aller then explained the potentially catastrophic consequences of healthcare fraud, medical identity theft, and duplicate medical records from misidentifying a patient and the additional problems and risks that data merges pose stressing that too often, hospitals spend hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions) of dollars a year cleaning data and merging records without ever having the foresight to implement technology that will sustain patient data integrity in the future. Bottom line? Relying on names and dates of birth (“what you know”) and ID cards (“what you have’) to identify patients is simply no longer safe or sufficient. The patient identification industry is evolving to identify patients by “who they are.”
  3.  Biometric patient identification technology overview: The last third of Dr. Aller’s presentation centered on an overview of biometric patient identification technologies available including a detailed description of fingerprint, palm vein, and iris recognition (also referred to as “photo biometrics”). Although Dr. Aller left out some key points about these biometric patient identification modality options (for example, he did not mention the back end biometric matching technology behind each of these modalities and why this is important to understand), his review was fair and provided a relatively unbiased look at the strengths and limitations of using biometrics for patient identification. One interesting point that Dr. Aller made was the fact that in a clinical setting, the use of fingerprint and palm vein biometrics for patient identification creates questions about hygiene and supporting hospital infection control policies because a patient must physcially touch a device for identification – an attribute that is not a factor with iris recognition since it is contactless to the patient. 
  4. Conclusion: Dr. Aller concluded his presentation by further extolling on the strengths of biometrics for patient identification but cautioned the audience that biometrics are by no means a panacea due to select psychological, sociological, and physiological limitations. However, Dr. Aller did point out that his research indicated that when presented with the option of using biometrics to protect their medical identities and keep them safe throughout the care continuum, over 99% of patients opt-in to using the technology.
  5. Question and Answer session: Selected attendees asked some very interesting questions during the Q&A session including one woman from a neonatal hospital who lamented that it is very difficult to identify newborns with biometrics since neither palm vein or fingerprint biometrics can be used on children (photo biometrics can be used on any child 10 months or older). Another person asked what biometric technology could be used to verify patient identities over the phone when they call in requesting access to protected health information (PHI).

Several other educational sessions during HIMSS were centered on patient identification in healthcare with several common themes emerging:

  1. The healthcare industry is slowly shifting from credential based to identity centric patient ID.
  2. A central reason that more hospitals aren’t researching how to more effectively identify patients are competing priorities. Healthcare simply has to drop the “wait and see” attitude to more effective patient identification. 
  3. 198,000 deaths annually can be contributed to patient misidentification.
  4. Patient misidentification resulted in $77 billion Medicare and Medicaid fraud and improper payments.

If I had a crystal ball, I’d venture to say that patient identification will continue to be a hot-button topic in healthcare during 2016 and beyond, largely because so many other elements of care along the continuum are contingent upon it and so many back-end processes and functions (e.g. – revenue cycle management) depend on getting it right. 

What lessons did you take away from any of the HIMSS 2016 educational sessions dedicated to patient ID in healthcare?

patient ID in healthcare podcast

IntrepidNow Healthcare Podcast Highlights Patient Identification in Healthcare

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patient ID in healthcare podcast
patient identification in healthcare podcast

Joe Lavelle from IntrepidNow Healthcare interviewed RightPatient® President Michael Trader to discuss the current state of patient identification in healthcare. (photo courtesy of Joe Lavelle and IntrepidNow Healthcare)

Our thanks to Joe Lavelle and his staff for inviting our President Michael Trader to the IntrepidNow podcast to discuss patient identification in healthcare. Joe invited Michael to not only talk about the current state of patient ID in healthcare and some of the problems that misidentification of patients creates, he also provided the opportunity for Michael to discuss the RightPatient® biometric patient identification platform and what distinct advantages it provides compared to other solutions on the market.

Listen in to Joe’s podcast and learn:

  • The impact of biometric patient ID solutions to eliminate duplicate medical records/overlays and sustain patient data integrity
  • How modern patient identification solutions help prevent medical identity theft and fraud at the point of service
  • How the digitization of healthcare now makes accurate patient identification essential at every touchpoint along the care continuum 
  • The rising importance and ubiquity of photos for accurate patient ID in healthcare
  • The biometric patient identification solution competitive landscape
  • Updates on The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) national patient ID challenge
  • Looking ahead to what’s next for RightPatient® in 2016

Listen to the entire interview here:

Thanks again to Joe Lavelle from IntrepidNow for inviting us to be a guest on his podcast! For a complete list of all RightPatient® healthcare biometrics podcasts, please visit our podcast landing page.

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Our Top Five Biometric Patient Identification Blog Posts of 2015

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biometric patient identification in healthcare

2015 was an important year of growth and innovation for RightPatient®. We started this blog two years ago to help educate the healthcare community on the importance of establishing secure, accurate patient identification in healthcare and to establish a trusted resource to help understand how the use of biometrics for patient ID has proven to be an important tool to help increase patient safety, eliminate duplicate medical records, improve revenue cycle management, and prevent medical identity theft and fraud. 

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Read through some of our most popular blog posts on biometric patient identification in healthcare during 2015

Throughout our journey, we have shared many important posts demonstrating how our hospital partners have successfully implemented biometrics for patient identification and provided real life examples of the post deployment benefits realized. Among the dozens of posts the RightPatient® team posted during 2015, the following posts were the most popular:

  1. Uniting Accurate Patient Identification with Secure Single Sign-On (SSO) to Improve Data Integrity in Healthcare: In an effort to help continue increasing patient data integrity in healthcare, we announced a new partnership with Healthcast,  the #1 ranked single sign-on solution (KLAS, 2014) to increase patient safety and secure access to patient data. 
  2. RightPatient® Prevents Healthcare Fraud at University Health System: Healthcare fraud and medical identity theft are two rising concerns for healthcare organizations because they jeopardize patient safety, raise the cost of care, and could lead to non-reimbursable medical procedures. University Hospital in Augusta, GA recently was able to prevent healthcare fraud in their ER through the use of the RightPatient® with photo biometrics.
  3. Removing the Word “Scan” from Iris Recognition for Healthcare Biometrics: Fueled by Hollywood sensationalism, iris recognition biometric identification is often depicted as “scanning” a person’s eyes with visible light. The fact is, no visible light is used with iris recognition and instead of a “scan,” iris biometrics takes a high resolution digital photograph. 
  4. Identify Unconscious, Unknown Patients with Biometric Identification Technology: The difficulty to identify an unconscious or disoriented patient jeopardizes patient safety in healthcare. Biometric patient identification has emerged as a technology capable of identifying patients in these conditions, but did you know that not all biometric patient ID solutions have the ability to identify unconscious or disoriented patients? 
  5. Biometric Patient Identification Implementation Should Be Higher On The Priority List: Despite the fact that accurate patient identification affects so many downstream clinical and financial activities, hospitals and healthcare organizations are still not placing enough emphasis on evaluating implementation and use of this technology as a priority. 

We will continue to research and write educational and informational posts during 2016 about the rising use of biometrics for patient identification in healthcare including case studies and examples of how our technology is helping hospitals around the world to: eliminate duplicate medical records, prevent medical identity theft and fraud, increase patient data integrity, and improve patient safety. 2015 was a year of significant growth for RightPatient® as we continue working toward our mission to offer the most innovative and comprehensive patient identification solution that increases patient safety, reduces costs, improves the quality of care, and enhances the patient experience. 

Curious to know more about the use of biometric patient identification in healthcare? Is there a topic that you would like to learn more about? Drop us a message at: jtrader@rightpatient.com with your ideas and suggestions!

Thank you for being a part of our blog community!

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RightPatient® Prevents Healthcare Fraud at University Health System

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Healthcare Fraud Jeopardizes Patient Safety and Raises the Cost of Care
Emergency Departments (ED) can be subjected to healthcare fraud from individuals without insurance seeking care, especially those with manageable chronic conditions. These patients often go to hospital EDs because they don’t have access to any source of care and in a large number of cases, attempt to defraud the healthcare system by providing different names, dates of birth, or other demographic information during registration.

Hospital patient access staff on alert for healthcare fraud often must strike a tricky balance of ensuring a patient receives timely care with the need to identify and prevent these individuals from illegally obtaining medical services that could raise liability and possibly harm the patient.

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Through the use of photo biometrics, the University Health System was able to catch a patient attempting to commit healthcare fraud in the ED.

Patients who may be trying to defraud the system can raise the cost of care for all of us with most of the cost to treat these individuals passed on to insurance providers that raise premiums to subsidize care provided to the uninsured. It’s a persistent problem in healthcare that jeopardizes patient safety.

Medical Identity Theft and Healthcare Fraud are Persistent Patient Safety Problems in Healthcare
The National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association (NHCAA) estimates that the financial losses due to health care fraud are in the tens of billions of dollars each year. The Ponemon Institute released a study earlier this year that reported a 21.7% increase in medical identity theft cases since the previous year’s study.

A costly and often complex and time consuming issue to resolve, healthcare fraud and medical identity theft often financially decimate victims and healthcare institutions and can have a ripple effect that negatively impacts provider reputation. Add to that evolving patient expectations that healthcare providers are taking the necessary steps to protect their identities and ensure the privacy of their protected health information (PHI), and it’s clear that this is a festering problem in the industry that deserves immediate and swift preventative action.

Implementing Biometric Patient Identification to Identify Potential Healthcare Fraud

When University Health System staff sat down to address the problem of healthcare fraud and began to assess patient authentication technology options that had the potential to prevent it, they decided to deploy RightPatient® biometric patient identification as part of an overall strategy to increase patient safety, eliminate duplicate medical records, and prevent medical identity theft and fraud throughout their network. Using photo biometrics as their preferred modality, University launched the RightPatient® patient identification system in the summer of 2015 at both hospitals in their network and began registering patients and linking their unique biometric credentials to a single electronic health record (EHR).

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Through the use of photo biometrics, the University Health System was able to catch a patient attempting to commit healthcare fraud in the ED.

Thusfar, the deployment has been a resounding success, with over 99% of patients opting in to ensure the safety and privacy of their PHI. University placed a great deal of emphasis to ensure their staff understood why the RightPatient® solution was implemented and meticulously trained patient access personnel on how to properly use the system prior to launch.

Their efforts paid off.

Recently, a patient was registered through the ED in the RightPatient® system, and then returned to the same ED days later claiming a different date of birth and a different last name. Following hospital registration protocol, the patient access representative took the patient’s photo with an iris camera and the RightPatient® system immediately flagged the patient’s medical record and instantly notified staff that the patient had previously enrolled with their biometric credentials already linked to another unique EHR. University staff then realized that the patient was attempting to assume another identity and took action to prevent it.

Even if this patient had enrolled in the RightPatient® biometric patient identification system at another location within University’s network, they still would have been flagged as a potential fraud case if they returned to a different facility due to the fact that RightPatient® seamlessly integrated with University’s Epic EHR system and can be used at any point along the care continuum, regardless of the patient’s physical location within the network (RightPatient® can even be used to authenticate an identity on patient portals and mHealth applications!).

Conclusion

The persistent and dangerous problem of medical identity theft and healthcare fraud is a direct threat to patient safety but also has repercussions that impact many other facets of care delivery. Implementing modern patient identification technologies that have the unique ability to prevent healthcare fraud should be a key goal for any medical facility set on improving safety, lowering liability, and raising the quality of care. The University Health System case clearly demonstrates that RightPatient® deters medical identity theft and healthcare fraud throughout the care continuum by linking a patient’s unique biometric credentials to one medical record.

Thank you to the staff at University for allowing us to share this story with our community!

 

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RightPatient® Helps Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital Fight Healthcare Fraud

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Prescription Drug Abuse

Eliminating fraud is a pressing issue in healthcare that continues to threaten patient safety. The FBI states on their Web site: “With no signs of slowing down, healthcare fraud is a rising threat, with national health care expenditures estimated to exceed $3 trillion in 2014 and spending continuing to outpace inflation.” On average, healthcare fraud accounts for 10% of our nation’s annual healthcare expenditure.

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Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital recently used photo biometrics to prevent healthcare fraud.

One form of healthcare fraud seen in emergency departments at hospitals around the country is individuals attempting to commit identity theft in order to obtain prescription medication. With approximately 8.76 million people in the U.S. abusing prescription medication and the lion’s share of those medications coming from a doctor’s prescription, medical facilities are proactively stepping up their efforts to implement stronger patient identification safeguards to ensure that the problem is addressed. After all, many patients may not understand the health dangers and risks of someone stealing your identity and inaccurate health data being attributed to your medical record – it is extremely dangerous and could result in serious injury, even death should a clinician act on incorrect protected health data (PHI) in your medical record. 

Just how bad is the problem of prescription drug abuse in the U.S.? Consider the fact that every day in the United States, 44 people die as a result of prescription opioid overdose. Fortunately, there are tools available to catch identity fraud at the point-of-service in hospitals before harm is done.

Using Photo Biometrics to Deter Healthcare Fraud

Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital implemented the RightPatient® patient identity management solutionusing photo biometrics to help support patient safety, eliminate duplicate medical records, and prevent and deter medical identity theft. Recently, a patient arrived at the Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital emergency room seeking treatment for an injury that according to the patient had just occurred in the prior hour. The patient signed in under a fraudulent name, date of birth, address, invalid marital status, a disconnected phone number, invalid employment status, fraudulent emergency contact, and an invalid social security number. The patient proceeded with registration, and signed all admission paperwork under the fraudulent information.

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Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital recently used photo biometrics to prevent healthcare fraud.

During the registration process, the registration clerk used the RightPatient® photo biometrics solution to enroll the patient since this was (according the patient) the first time they had ever been to the hospital. The RightPatient® system worked just as it was designed, sending the registration clerk an alert that indicated the patent had been previously enrolled and that their biometric credentials had already been linked to another unique electronic medical record, providing the medical record number the patient had been registered under.

The clerk was then able to access the medical record the patient had been previously registered under and after review, Hugh Chatham was able to see other visits for that same day in other clinic/practice locations. A decision was made to contact local authorities.

Thanks to the RightPatient® software and the efforts of this staff member, Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital was able to securely identify the patient, avoid duplicate medical records, prevent identity theft and associated healthcare costs, and help maintain a safe environment for patients. 

Conclusion

Encouraging healthcare facilities to implement safeguards that ensure accurate patient authentication through technologies such as photo biometrics has been our mission since we founded RightPatient®. We will continue to share our success stories with others to help educate and inform in the overall effort to remove fraud and increase patient safety in healthcare.

Have a story on how the use of biometrics prevented a potential case of healthcare fraud? Please share it with us in the comments!

RightPatient protects patient privacy and patient safety

Takeaways from the 2015 NE NAHAM Regional Conference – “Improving the Patient Experience”

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RightPatient protects patient privacy and patient safety
RightPatient protects patient privacy and patient safety

David Cuberos, Enterprise Sales consultant with RightPatient®, poses with Bryan Marcotte from Baystate Health, winner of the gift card door prize at the 2015 NE NAHAM regional conference.

The following guest post was written by David Cuberos, Enterprise Sales Consultant with RightPatient®

The time that we spend meeting with patient access professionals in the field is important to us. It’s an opportunity for our team to better understand core patient access functions/workflow and how these critical front line staffers help mold the patient experience as a first point of contact in what can often be a long, complex journey through the healthcare system. Our strong support for the National Association of Healthcare Access Management (NAHAM) and their regional chapters is a key relationship — instrumental to our product and service design and the ability for us as healthcare software vendors to deliver a solution that meets the dynamic needs of these healthcare professionals and moves the patient safety needle in a positive direction.

Last week, we had the opportunity to meet with patient access professionals from the northeast region of the U.S. to discuss the patient access professionals’ impact on the patient experience. We learned a lot about challenges faced by patient access staff, how it impacts workflow, and what new technology solutions are available to help meet the shifting and often complex demands of this position. 

We also had the opportunity to discuss the ongoing conundrum of achieving accurate patient identification with show attendees and display our biometric patient identification solution that helps to increase patient safety and eliminate duplicate medical records/overlays and prevent medical identity theft and healthcare fraud. This was an ideal environment for us to not only help educate attendees on the value of implementing a patient identification solution, but it also provided us the opportunity to clear up misunderstandings about how this technology operates in a healthcare setting. As we do at all events, we learned a great deal about what types of questions healthcare professionals have about this technology and walked away with some key takeaways:

1. Retinal scanning and iris recognition are two different biometric technologies: This is a recurring misunderstanding we consistently see wherever we go. Due to the fact that both retinal scanning and iris recognition use the human eye for identification, most people believe that the technology is the same. In fact, the two are very different – explained in this blog post we wrote that breaks down the differences between iris recognition and retinal scanning.

2. Patient acceptance of iris recognition is extremely high: Some believe that using the iris as a unique identification credential can invoke patient trepidation to register their biometrics as a way to protect their identity and ensure accurate treatment throughout the care continuum. However, when healthcare staff observes the iris camera in person, they realize that it is perhaps the least invasive biometric modality because it simply takes a high-resolution digital photograph of the patient and can identify them in less than three seconds. Our field research supports patient acceptance of iris recognition for identification, with over a 99% acceptance rate.

3. Proper due diligence of biometric patient ID vendors is critical: Did you know that not all biometric matching types support the elimination of duplicate medical records or have the ability to prevent medical identity theft and healthcare fraud in real-time? Are you concerned about implementing a contact dependent biometric modality for patient identification that may jeopardize hospital infection control policies or require additional investments in a cleaning solution or wipes after each use? Does a biometric identification system seamlessly integrate with your electronic health record system to accurately authenticate patients from any touchpoint along the care continuum? Does your biometric patient identification solution have the ability to secure remote access to protected health information (PHI) from patient portals and/or mHealth apps? 

These are all important to ask when evaluating biometric patient identification vendors but our experience is that many hospitals aren’t asking the right questions. 

4. Hospital resources to resolving duplicate medical records are staggering: We continue to be amazed at the number of hospital staff dedicated to resolving duplicate medical records. In fact we spoke with a few attendees who mentioned that they have “teams of people” dealing with duplicate medical record clean-up. Although we can’t understate enough the importance of maintaining clean data, we have longed believed that implementation of modern patient identification technologies that have the ability to not only clean a master patient index (MPI), but sustain the integrity of the data moving forward. The key to preventing duplicate medical records is implementation of technology that can accurately identify patients no matter where they are along the care continuum.  

5. Patient experience can be boosted through the use of biometric patient identification technology: Patients pay close attention to their experience at a medical facility. Patient knowledge of the negative effects of duplicate medical records and medical identity theft has increased their empowerment to seek services at facilities where their identities are protected. Implementing a biometric patient identification solution to protect patient identities invokes the emotion that medical facilities care about safeguarding patient safety and privacy. 

Understanding how to improve the patient experience in healthcare requires careful examination of processes and workflow that bring convenience and demonstrate a genuine interest in protecting patient identities. We continue in our mission to provide the most comprehensive and holistic patient identification solutions available to help improve the patient experience in healthcare.

A special shout out to Bryan Marcotte from Baystate Health as the winner of the gift card door prize. Congratulations Bryan!

How can we help you to improve the patient experience at your medical facility?

biometric patient identification prevents duplicate medical recordsDavid Cuberos is an Enterprise Sales Consultant with RightPatient® helping hospitals and healthcare organizations realize the benefits of implementing biometrics for patient identification to; increase patient safety, eliminate duplicate medical records and overlays, and prevent medical identity theft and healthcare fraud.

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Bethesda Health Implements Iris Biometrics for Patient Identification

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Bethesda-Health-implements-RightPatient's-biometric-patient-identification-solution

Excited to announce that another hospital system has implemented our biometric patient identification solution using iris biometrics to help raise patient safety standards, safeguard patients from medical identity theft and fraud at the point of service, and prevent the creation of duplicate medical records.

Bethesda-Health-implements-RightPatient's-biometric-patient-identification-solution

Bethesda Health becomes the latest hospital system to implement the RightPatient® biometric patient identification solution using iris recognition.

After carefully evaluating several biometric patient identification solutions, Bethesda Health chose to deploy iris biometrics due to it’s non-contact, hygienic form factor which supports hospital infection control initiatives plus, implementation of RightPatient® poises Bethesda Health to eventually extend the use of the technology to any patient touchpoint along the care continuum that requires patient identification accuracy to ensure optimal outcomes. This is critical foresight by Bethesda staff who recognized that accurate patient identification in the new healthcare paradigm extends far beyond in or outpatient registration within their facilities and should now be addressed holistically by providing secure and accurate patient ID at any point along the care continuum where patients have access to medical care or sensitive personal health information (e.g. patient portals, mHealth apps, home health, etc.).

We welcome Bethesda Health as a trusted partner in the effort to increase patient safety, reduce duplicate medical record rates, eliminate medical identity theft, improve revenue cycle efficiency through the use of our biometric patient identification platform using iris recognition. 

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For more information on the deployment, please visit the news release section of our Web site. 

Learn more about the advantages of using biometrics for patient identification by visiting the Resources section of our Web site.

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Novant Health Uses Iris Biometrics to Identify Unknown Patient

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It’s a familiar case. An unconscious or unknown patient arrives in the ER without any identification leaving clinicians to administer care in the absence of any medical history to review. This presents a serious patient safety risk since treating an unknown patient without the benefit of securing their identity is dangerous and can be a huge liability. What if they are allergic to a certain medication? What if they have a pre-existing condition that must be considered prior to receiving any treatment?

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Novant Health recently used the RightPatient iris biometrics patient identification system to identify an unknown, disoriented patient.

Since these cases are more often trauma related requiring immediate attention, clinicians must take a risk and administer care in the absence of any historical medical data. An obvious threat to patient safety and a situation that clearly raises liability, healthcare organizations have long sought to adopt technology that can instantly identify patients in these cases without the need for any demographic information. 

The staff at Novant Health decided to proactively implement an iris biometric identification system throughout their network as a means to secure accurate patient ID and ensure that patients, no matter what the circumstances, are kept safe throughout the care continuum. Although adopting a biometric patient identification system to identify unconscious or unknown patients wasn’t the sole reason that Novant implemented this technology, they knew that by choosing to use iris recognition as their primary biometric modality they would be able to quickly and accurately identify any patient in these circumstances without having to ask for an additional identification credentials (e.g. – D.O.B.). 

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Novant’s iris biometric patient identification system was recently put to the test when a disoriented, unknown patient arrived in the ER without any identification credentials. Novant staff quickly realized that they could take the patient’s photo with a RightPatient iris camera and if they had been previously registered in their Epic EHR database, the biometric patient identification system would recognize them and immediately pull up their medical record. Fortunately, the patient had previously been enrolled with the RightPatient system and their identity was instantly recognized after their photo was taken with the iris camera. A big relief to Novant staff since they were now able to not only access her medical history prior to treatment, but they were also able to quickly contact the patient’s relatives to inform them of the situation.

Thank you to our partners at Novant Health for sharing this story and demonstrating the value of using biometrics for patient identification in the context of keeping patients as safe as possible throughout the care continuum!

How often do you experience situations where patients arrive at your facility without identification credentials? Did you know that not all biometric patient identification solutions have the ability to identify unknown or unconscious patients?

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Iris Recognition Offers Non-Contact, Hygienic Individual Identification

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The following guest post was written by Brian Bilia, Enterprise Sales Consultant with RightPatient®

More Schools Using Non-Contact Biometrics for Individual Identification

In case you missed it, this week Virginia Commonwealth University announced the implementation of iris recognition in their on-campus dining halls for student identification. In addition to presenting a safer and more secure way to identify students the deployment according to the article, the initiative is designed to be:

“…helpful for students who forget or lose their IDs over the weekend, as there is not a way to get a replacement card over the weekend.” (USA Today, “New iris cameras at Va. school scan students’ eyes for entry into dining hall” http://usat.ly/1L4cbWb)

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If schools adopt iris biometrics for student ID based on it’s non-contact, hygienic form factor, shouldn’t the healthcare industry offer the same protection to patients?

The article goes on to report that one of the main reasons Virginia Commonwealth and another schools chose to deploy iris recognition was because of its non-contact, hygienic feature:

“VCU is following in the steps of other schools — including George Mason University — which introduced the eye scanning system last year. Both schools opted for the this non-contact form of biometric technology — as opposed to a fingerprint scanner — because it is less invasive and won’t spread germs.” (USA Today, “New iris cameras at Va. school scan students’ eyes for entry into dining hall” http://usat.ly/1L4cbWb)

Essentially, hygiene played a critical role in determining which biometric modality the school would use for student identification. Due to the fact that iris recognition does not require physical contact with a biometric device, it presents one of the most hygienic hardware options available, keeping end users safe from the spread of germs and illness that could otherwise be a risk when using a contact dependent modality such as fingerprint or palm vein recognition. The fact that schools continue to adopt iris recognition for identification due to it’s hygienic, non-contact features begs the question — shouldn’t hospitals adopting biometric patient identification tools be investigating non-contact biometric modalities too?

Non-Contact, Hygienic Biometric Patient ID in Healthcare

In the healthcare industry, patient safety is the #1 priority. Rising conscientiousness about new strategies to keep patients safe rise combined with the explosion of digital health tools has pushed hospitals to re-assess hospital acquired condition (HAC) control policies and implement new platforms and monitoring programs that provide a safer and more hygienic environment for patient care. In addition, new policies by Medicare now penalize hospitals with high HAC rates raising the level of urgency to adopt digital health tools that support hospital infection control policies.

In lockstep with the urgency to increase patient safety in any possible way, hospitals and healthcare organizations are quickly catching on to the benefits of using biometrics for patient identification as a means to increase patient safety but what they are also discovering is that not all biometric hardware modalities have the ability to offer a non-contact, hygienic experience. Biometric hardware that requires physical contact by a patient can be interpreted as non-hygienic and raises the risk of HAC’s if the device is not properly sanitized after each use. Even when properly sanitized, these devices still pose a threat to patient safety due to the fact that cleaning agents do not have the ability to remove 100% of germs or bacteria.

Upon further research, healthcare entities learn that using iris recognition for patient identification in healthcare offers the use of an iris camera that a patient does not touch, helping to support hospital infection control policies and ensure that no one is susceptible to germs or bacteria that could cause an infection or illness. 

Patient Acceptance is Key

Despite the advantages of using iris recognition for patient ID in healthcare, certain stigmas exist about this technology that may make a healthcare organization hesitant to adopt. Many feel that iris recognition is too invasive and beams visible light into a patient’s eyes to determine their identity. In reality, iris recognition is often confused with retinal scanning which does use visible light for identification. Iris recognition instead uses camera technology with subtle infrared illumination to acquire images of the detail-rich, intricate structures of the iris. It’s 100% safe, and our field research has proven that patients are overwhelmingly accepting of using iris recognition for identification when presented with the option to protect them from duplicate medical records, fraud, and medical ID theft. 

Plus, iris recognition for patient ID offers other benefits such as the ability to identify unconscious or unknown patients and is built on one-to-many matching, the only true way to prevent duplicate medical records and medical identity theft in healthcare. 

Conclusion

Iris recognition has proven to be one of the most popular biometric modalities for individual identification for a number of reasons, including it’s non-contact, hygienic form factor that protects end users from germs and bacteria that otherwise exist on alternative biometric hardware devices. Hygiene has a rising influence in determining which hardware modality is utilized in  biometric identification management projects, and the advantages of using iris recognition biometrics has positioned the technology for strong adoption growth in the years to come.

How important is hygiene to you when selecting a biometric hardware modality?

biometric patient identification using iris recognition

Brian joined RightPatient in July 2015 as Enterprise Sales Consultant for the Midwest Region. Prior to RightPatient, Brian held several roles in sales management and new business development achieving over 15 years of experience working with the healthcare/hospital industry.