Eliminate duplicate patient information across your enterprise – Iron Mountain Master Patient Index (MPI) Cleanup solution

The criticality of MPI data integrity

Patient matching connects disparate patient records across medical providers and facilities. When done well, it provides an accurate view of the patient’s health and medical history. This enables healthcare providers to make informed care decisions that optimize patient outcomes. The problem is that establishing — and, more accurately, maintaining — an up-to-date Master Patient Index is just not that easy.

As patients move through the continuum of care, life events lead to last name changes, data entry errors occur, and patient information gets trapped in portals and systems that do not connect with each other. The result? MPI duplicates, overlays, and overlaps that elevate risk, increase cost, and hinder downstream process efficiency.

Let’s take a closer look at the implications.

Patient safety risks

• Decisions driven by inaccurate or incomplete patient information
• Incorrect diagnoses and treatment errors
• Unnecessary procedures

Lack of data integrity

• Lack of data trust and usability due to duplicates, overlays, and overlaps
• Downstream system data quality issues
• Higher EMR implementation costs and delays

Negative financial impact

• Delayed or improper billing and reimbursement
• Denied claims and lost charges
• Costly cleanup projects to eradicate errors

Compliance risks

• HIPAA violations
• Increased identity theft risks
• Record retention noncompliance
• Lack of complete and defensible legal records

Strategic imperatives shine a light on MPI integrity issues

Changing care delivery models, EMR system migrations, and market transactions, such as mergers or acquisitions, are increasing MPI scrutiny and escalating calls for cleanup. Why?

• COVID-19 Testing, Vaccination Sites, and Telehealth

  With COVID-19 testing, vaccinations, and patient treatment increasingly taking place outside of traditional healthcare facility walls, mass utilization of self registration portals has left organizations struggling to accurately capture, integrate, and disseminate patient information.

• EMR System Migrations

  A huge amount of due diligence goes into selecting a new EMR vendor. In order to ensure the adoption and effectiveness of the new system, it is important to address data quality issues prior to migration. Otherwise, you run the risk of bogging down your new system with dirty data — and experiencing all the risks and inefficiencies that come with it.

• Mergers and Acquisitions

  Organizations are increasingly merging to offset financial pressures and diversify patient services. However, to ensure a seamless patient experience, MPI data must be standardized, deduplicated, and integrated across the newly formed organization.

By proactively analyzing and addressing MPI data integrity issues, you can play a key role in helping your organization seamlessly navigate these changes and advance strategic initiatives.

How can Iron Mountain help?

The Iron Mountain Enterprise Master Patient Index Cleanup Solution can help you detect, reconcile, and prevent duplicate records across multiple sites, locations, and systems. Using this solution, you can strengthen your ability to meet regulatory compliance standards and reduce the costs and risks associated with patient identity management.

This solution enables you to:

1. Identify data integrity challenges With the Iron Mountain MPI Analytics Service, you will receive a quantitative analysis of your existing MPI database(s), producing a snapshot in time of your MPI data integrity challenges. This analysis includes a summary and detailed reports of duplicate record sets. This service also includes a supporting professional consultation to help you understand both detailed and aggregate-level information regarding your specific data integrity issues.
2. Manage your MPI cleanup process With the Iron Mountain MPI Cleanup Services, your engagement begins with a detailed project plan that documents the scope of work and schedule of activities to be performed. Leveraging industry-recognized technology, errors in your enterprise MPI will be identified. In addition, you will receive comprehensive services to manage the error correction process and resolve duplicate records. An experienced team of HIM-credentialed professionals and talented cleanup staff will provide oversight and management for your project, from start to finish. Each engagement includes detailed procedures for process improvements and best practices for patient data management to help ensure clean patient records going forward.
3. Supplement your staffing resources Iron Mountain can supplement your existing staff with Iron Mountain Staffing Resources to ensure you have sufficient means to tackle the complex challenges of patient identity management.

What does this mean for you?

With the Iron Mountain MPI Cleanup Solution you can:

• Increase patient identification accuracy to enhance patient safety and elevate clinician confidence
• Enable seamless and cost-effective EHR implementations and system integrations
• Reduce errors and duplicates to achieve an error rate as low as .5 percent
• Improve accuracy and timeliness of billing and reimbursement
• Enhance compliance and reporting to support strategic initiatives