EMPI
Encyclopedia
Enterprise Master Patient Index (or Enterprise-wide Master Patient Index), are Master Patient Indexes (MPIs) which link several smaller organization level MPIs together.
Many software vendors use EMPI and MPI synonymously.
, an Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI) is a form of Customer Data Integration
(CDI) specific to the healthcare industry. Healthcare organizations or groups of them will implement EMPI to identify, match, merge, de-duplicate, and cleanse patient records to create a master index that may be used to obtain a complete and single view of a patient. The EMPI will create a unique identifier for each patient and maintain a mapping to the identifiers used in each records' respective system.
An EMPI will typically provide APIs for searching and querying the index to find patients and the pointers to their identifiers and records in the respective systems. It may also store some subset of the attributes for the patient so that it may be queried as an authoritative source of the "single best record" for the patient. Registration or other practice management applications may interact with the index when admitting new patients to have the single best record from the start, or may have the records indexed at a later time.
An EMPI may additionally work with or include Enterprise Application Integration
(EAI) capabilities to update the originating source systems of the patient records with the cleansed and authoritative data.
A key component of an EMPI is the match engine. A match engine may be deterministic or probabalistic. The match engine must be configured and tuned for each implementation to minimize the false matches and unmatches. The accuracy and performance of the match engine are a big factor in determining the value and ROI for an EMPI solution.
The attributes a match engine is configured to use will typically include name, date of birth, sex, social security number, address and more. The match engine must be able to give consideration to typos, misspellings, transpositions, aliases, and more.
Even the best tuned EMPI will not be 100% accurate. Thus an EMPI will provide a data stewardship interface for reviewing the match engine results, handling records for which the engine does not definitively determine a match or not. This interface will provide for performing search, merge, unmerge, edit and numerous other operations. This interface may also be used to monitor the performance of the match engine and perform periodic audits on the quality of the data.
Organizations that would use an EMPI include hospitals, medical centers, outpatient clinics, physician offices, rehabilitation facilities, etc.
Many software vendors use EMPI and MPI synonymously.
Definition
In computingComputing
Computing is usually defined as the activity of using and improving computer hardware and software. It is the computer-specific part of information technology...
, an Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI) is a form of Customer Data Integration
Customer Data Integration
In data processing, customer data integration combines the technology, processes and services needed to set up and maintain an accurate, timely, complete and comprehensive representation of a customer across multiple channels, business-lines, and enterprises — typically from multiple sources of...
(CDI) specific to the healthcare industry. Healthcare organizations or groups of them will implement EMPI to identify, match, merge, de-duplicate, and cleanse patient records to create a master index that may be used to obtain a complete and single view of a patient. The EMPI will create a unique identifier for each patient and maintain a mapping to the identifiers used in each records' respective system.
An EMPI will typically provide APIs for searching and querying the index to find patients and the pointers to their identifiers and records in the respective systems. It may also store some subset of the attributes for the patient so that it may be queried as an authoritative source of the "single best record" for the patient. Registration or other practice management applications may interact with the index when admitting new patients to have the single best record from the start, or may have the records indexed at a later time.
An EMPI may additionally work with or include Enterprise Application Integration
Enterprise application integration
Enterprise Application Integration is defined as the use of software and computer systems architectural principles to integrate a set of enterprise computer applications.- Overview :...
(EAI) capabilities to update the originating source systems of the patient records with the cleansed and authoritative data.
A key component of an EMPI is the match engine. A match engine may be deterministic or probabalistic. The match engine must be configured and tuned for each implementation to minimize the false matches and unmatches. The accuracy and performance of the match engine are a big factor in determining the value and ROI for an EMPI solution.
The attributes a match engine is configured to use will typically include name, date of birth, sex, social security number, address and more. The match engine must be able to give consideration to typos, misspellings, transpositions, aliases, and more.
Even the best tuned EMPI will not be 100% accurate. Thus an EMPI will provide a data stewardship interface for reviewing the match engine results, handling records for which the engine does not definitively determine a match or not. This interface will provide for performing search, merge, unmerge, edit and numerous other operations. This interface may also be used to monitor the performance of the match engine and perform periodic audits on the quality of the data.
Organizations that would use an EMPI include hospitals, medical centers, outpatient clinics, physician offices, rehabilitation facilities, etc.
Key Benefits
By correctly matching patient records from disparate systems and different organizations, a complete view of a patient may be obtained. With this complete view, numerous benefits may be realized including:- Better patient care can be provided.
- Improved customer service can be offered.
- In emergency or other critical care situations, medical staff can be more confident that they know medical conditions or other information that would be critical to providing proper care.
- Historical care related information can be obtained from across organizations.
Vendors
Numerous companies provide EMPI products. Some are pure-play providers and others provide EMPI offerings as part of a broader MDM or integration solution. Vendors include:- Eclipsys
- Epic
- HealthUnityHealthUnityHealthUnity Corporation is an American software company serving the health information exchange market. They provide software products and services for various types of HIE deployments...
- IBMIBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
- McKessonMcKessonMcKesson Corporation is the largest health care company in the world, with sales of $106.6 billion in 2009.McKesson is based in the United States and distributes health care systems, medical supplies and pharmaceutical products...
- NextGate
- OracleOracle CorporationOracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
- QuadraMed
- VisionWare
- WebMHC
- Siemens
- InterComponentWare, Inc. (ICW)