This case study looks at a health information network that has gone from zero uniquely identified patients to 7.6 million – and nearly all major health systems statewide are set to participate in its Common Key Service.

By Bill Siwicki

Real-time, actionable health information exchange requires an accurate, reliable approach to matching patients with their electronic health records across different organizations and information systems. The Michigan Health Information Network Shared Services needed to ensure its patient-matching capabilities were as accurate as possible.

PROPOSAL
Michigan’s approach was to create a unique system-to-system attribute – not human-readable – called a “common key” that its participating stakeholders could include in messages to ensure dependable, inter-organizational patient-matching.

In Michigan, the health information network model is designed to encourage both… Read more