The organization should establish a clear process to ensure every care recipient is uniquely identified within its systems. This process should include a method for regularly detecting and merging duplicate records to maintain the integrity and accuracy of patient information.
The organization should define and enforce a consistent data collection process across all departments and systems, mandating a specific set of demographic identifiers (e.g., full legal name, date of birth, national identifier). A formal, documented process should be created for authorized staff to review potential duplicates, validate patient identities, and safely merge the records into a single, comprehensive file.
A centralized database technology should be deployed to serve as the authoritative source for patient identity, linking all of a patient's records from different systems. The organization should proactively run system-wide checks and analyses to identify potential duplicates, fragmented records, and other identity-related data errors for remediation.
