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Enterprise Master Person Index

Verato solutions are powered by our industry-leading EMPI software, Verato Universal MPI™. Whether you are managing data for patients, members, consumers, or providers, our integrated EMPI capabilities will ensure highest-accuracy matching to power complete and trusted 360-degree views. Speak with an expert today to learn more.

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What is EMPI in healthcare?

EMPI stands for Enterprise Master Patient (or Person) Index, a core software system used to resolve and link patient identity data in healthcare organizations. It serves as a single source of truth for patient identity that helps ensure accuracy when managing medical records and other patient information. The EMPI helps maximize operational efficiency and reduce errors in healthcare organizations by enabling an accurate and up-to-date view of a patient’s complete clinical history as well as critical information from outside the electronic medical record (EMR) like consumer data or social determinants of health (SDOH) data for that person.

What is an EMPI used for?

Enterprise Master Patient Index (EMPI) software is used to help healthcare organizations accurately match and link the data it holds for one person across siloed systems–such as data in electronic medical records (EMRs), customer relationship management (CRM) software, public health databases, and payer claims systems. Since so much of the critical data in healthcare is related to a person–whether that person be a patient, member, consumer, provider, or employee–an EMPI is an essential element of data management for any healthcare organization.

What is an example of EMPI?

An EMPI is software that accurately resolves identity data so that records for one patient or member that live in siloed systems can be confidently linked together, enabling a more complete view of that person. One example of an EMPI is Verato Universal MPI™, the industry-leading EMPI that powers the Verato Universal Identity platform and all Verato solutions.

What is the difference between MPI and EMPI software?

A master patient index (MPI) is designed to match records within a single application, and often utilizes rudimentary patient matching algorithms and data stewardship. It may be embedded into systems like electronic medical records (EMRs) and designed to resolve identities created or housed within that single system.

An enterprise master patient index (EMPI) matches records across multiple siloed applications including EMRs, customer relationship management systems (CRMs), data warehouses, and analytics–and typically uses more advanced matching technology. Therefore, an EMPI powers a more complete view of a person’s longitudinal or clinical history compared to an MPI.

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Choosing an EMPI solution

Healthcare Expertise

Healthcare organizations have unique data workflows and business challenges. Your EMPI solution should be purpose-built to complement your ecosystem and support your strategic objectives.

Easy Data Integration

Consider a cloud-native SaaS solution, for easy integration with all of your source data systems, seamless updates, and the ability to scale with your growing digital ecosystem.

Security

Security breaches are a serious risk for healthcare organizations today. When partnering with any vendor, uncompromising data security is an absolute must. Only vendors with highest levels of data security should be considered, including HITRUST and SOC2 certifications. Features to look for include continuous threat monitoring and data encryption at rest and in flight.

Quick Time to Value

Deploying an EMPI will be critical to the success of your strategic priorities--including smarter growth, better care, and actionable insights. You don't have years to wait for results, so your EMPI should be easy to implement, require minimal or no tuning, and be useful out of the box without expensive professional services work.

Matching Accuracy

More than in any other industry, the stakes are high in healthcare organizations to be sure fragmented records are matched accurately. Verato is truly unique in the market with our native Referential Matching technology, and is third-party verified to have industry-leading accuracy.

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Scalability

Consider an EMPI that is part of a larger data management platform, for one single source of truth for identities across patients, members, consumers, and providers. A comprehensive platform will scale with your organization's needs while supporting a streamlined and efficient technology infrastructure. Verato has built the industry's first hMDM platform--master data management reimagined specifically for healthcare use cases.

Interested in learning more?

At Verato, we are the identity experts for healthcare. Whether you're just beginning your research or ready to choose a solution, we are here to help. Schedule a conversation or strategy session today.

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Deeper dive: How does an EMPI work?

An EMPI works by resolving identities, assigning a unique identifier to each individual, and linking together records for the same person. The software is powered in part by a set of algorithms built by data scientists to optimize accuracy and efficiency.

Patient matching algorithms

An EMPI’s match engine defines how the software decides if two records belong to the same person–a process called person matching or patient matching. Patient matching is the ability to link all of a patient or member’s data across different applications to one correct person, using demographic data as the foundation to form a comprehensive understanding of that patient or member.

Patient matching is challenging because 30% of demographic data is inaccurate, incomplete, or inconsistent. This problem becomes worse when systems exchange inaccurate or incomplete information with one another.

The solution: Native Referential Matching

Most EMPIs today use probabilistic algorithms for patient matching, which are limited in their ability to match records with missing, outdated, or incorrect information. Verato solutions are unique in deploying native Referential Matching. We developed this model because it greatly increases the integrity and accuracy of matching–a must for healthcare applications of EMPI.

Verato Referential Matching® incorporates smart probabilistic algorithms with a proprietary reference database of demographic information spanning the U.S. population with up to 30 years of historical data. The probabilistic patient matching algorithms use this database as an answer key during matching to overcome many demographic data errors and inconsistencies. This reference data is used to augment existing patient registry data while matching to overcome the 30% of demographic data that is out-of-date, incomplete, or inaccurate.

Resolving duplicate records

When a source system like an EHR has more than one medical record for the same person, that is considered a duplicate patient record. In healthcare organizations, rates of same-source duplication vary widely. The discrepancy can be in the single digits to over 20%.

The same algorithms that govern patient or person matching work to flag and resolve potential duplicate records. Deploying a solution with a higher level of matching accuracy decreases the rate of duplicate records in an organization.

Why are duplicate records a problem?

Duplicate records can cause serious problems for healthcare organizations because it means the pieces of information for one person lives fragmented across multiple medical records. A person viewing one of the records is only seeing part of the available information about the patient or member. Duplicate records in a system can lead to:

Medical, billing, and claims errors
Poor patient and member experiences
Lower retention rate of patients
Higher acquisition cost per patient
Additional costs due to redundant tests or treatments

Correcting and avoiding duplicate records is also essential in order to ensure data integrity for analytics and public health initiatives. It is a problem that affects healthcare organizations at all levels.

Additional Resources

Learn more about choosing an EMPI and the industry-leading Verato technology and approach.

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Guide: Making the business case for a next-generation EMPI