Problem
Real-World Case
A municipal medical center in a city of 100,000 residents decided that they needed to diversify if they were going to survive the ups and downs of the economy. The board of directors met with the chief of the medical staff to determine the best course of action. They mutually decided to emphasize a cradle-to-grave approach by acquiring a few select physician practices and a local nursing home, starting a home health agency, and creating a hospice unit within the medical center. The board then decided to link all new acquisitions to the medical center's existing electronic health record (EHR) but ran into a problem with patient identification for health record purposes. The issue was that the same patient may have been or was going to be in multiple facilities within the new enterprise. However, at each of the present facilities (physician office, medical center, and nursing home), the same patient would have different health record numbers. A plan for an enterprise health record number was needed. The medical center administration decided to bring in the health information management director of the medical center to provide expertise and experience in resolving the problem.
Real-World Case Discussion Questions
• How is this situation complicated by not having all of the facilities linked into a common EHR?
• Whom would the HIM director have to work with to make an EMPI project successful?
• What are the advantages to all facilities of having a shared health record number?