VA calls on Initiate Systems to clean up health records, duplicates
The Department of Veterans Affairs has inked a deal with Initiate Systems worth $2.3 million to clean up health records by matching records to the correct person and eliminate duplicate records, Government Computer News reports.
The records are maintained in the Veterans Health Administration's Master Person Index system. The index system is able to link patient records (there are currently 12 million entries) held in assorted systems across the VA's 1,300 facilities.
To accomplish this daunting task, Initiate has a matching algorithms which is able to identify and link records in the index. Various parts of the demographic information for each record are evaluated for similarities. Records that meet a certain threshold for similarity are established as matches within the system, according to Elizabeth Franchi, data quality coordinator in VHA's Office of Health Data and Informatics.
The records are maintained in the Veterans Health Administration's Master Person Index system. The index system is able to link patient records (there are currently 12 million entries) held in assorted systems across the VA's 1,300 facilities.
To accomplish this daunting task, Initiate has a matching algorithms which is able to identify and link records in the index. Various parts of the demographic information for each record are evaluated for similarities. Records that meet a certain threshold for similarity are established as matches within the system, according to Elizabeth Franchi, data quality coordinator in VHA's Office of Health Data and Informatics.