New Product Offers Enterprisewide Unique Patient IDs

By, Joseph Goedert:
Risk management software vendor TASCET Inc. of Madison, Wis, has introduced a unique patient identifier for providers, insurers, health information exchanges and other healthcare organizations.
Enterprise use of the identifier across an organization would increase patient safety and convenience, while also protecting against fraud, says Larry Aubol, CEO at TASCET. The company is marketing unique identifiers in seven industries; the primary markets are healthcare, banking and retail. The vendor is working with Epic Systems to support the identifier for two hospitals that are implementing it, and Cerner has agreed to work support the identifier if clients want it.
The identifier also can be used to ID employees to deter fraudulent activities and get them comfortable with the process that patients will go through to register for the ID. “If employees are not comfortable, they can’t encourage patients to consider the identifier,” Aubol says. Assigning health professionals a unique identifier would help an organization better understand who its affiliated providers are and further can help identify health professionals who are assessing patient records without authorization.
The identifier has 16 digits. When a patient registers, he or she would be told that the facility wants to create a “super-identifier” that would be consistent across the organization and seeks permission to activate the identifier.  Two fingerprints would be scanned into a recognition system as would a facial scan of the patient, and tied to these identifiers would be the patient name, date of birth, address, gender and county where born. In subsequent visits, the patient would look in a camera or a fingerprint reader to verify identity.
The identifier also could, over time, enhance provider revenue cycles, Aubol says, as banks move toward more prompt payment. TASCET is in discussions with such organizations as Kaiser Permanente, Geisinger Health System, Intermountain Healthcare, Sutter Health, multiple health information exchanges and attorneys, Aubol says. The company expects its first live hospital by the fourth quarter of 2015.