National Patient Identifiers (from Precision Medicine and the Reinvention of Human Disease)

Readers from outside the United States are probably wondering why the United States agonizes over the problem of patient identification. In many other countries, individuals are given a unique national identifier, and all medical data associated with the individual is kept in a central data repository under the aegis of the government ’s health service. A single, permanent identifier is used by a patient throughout life, in every encounter with a hospital, clinic, or private physician. As a resource for researchers, the national patient identifier ensures the completeness of data sets and eliminates many of the problems associa ted with poorly implemented local identifier systems.In the United States, there has been fierce resistance to the idea of national patient identifiers. The call for a national patient identification system is raised from time to time. The benefits to patients and to society are many. Regardless, US citizens are reluctant to have an identifying number that is associated with a federally controlled electronic record of their private medical information. In part, this distrust results from the lack of any national insurance system in the United States. Most health insurance in the United States is private, and private insurers have wide discretion over the fees and services provided to enrollees. There is a fear that if there were a national patient identifier with centralized electronic medical records, insurers would withhold reimbursements or raise ...
Source: Specified Life - Category: Information Technology Tags: confidentiality identification medical identifier national patient identifier privacy Source Type: blogs