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[Gnumed-devel] Re: Lab import fundamentals
From: |
Jim Busser |
Subject: |
[Gnumed-devel] Re: Lab import fundamentals |
Date: |
Sat, 28 Aug 2010 19:34:47 -0700 |
(replying back onto the list, on account of this thread nearing maturity)
On 2010-08-28, at 6:36 PM, Karsten Hilbert wrote:
>> It
>> only becomes a problem if multiple labs would each misspell many people's
>> names *multiple* different ways.
>
> Oh, they will.
I agree that patients can easily provide each praxis, and each lab, with a
slightly different name.
The GNUmed importer that is being developed will accept name variants, and
these will boil down potential matches on a combination of
date of birth
surname
some combination of "first names portions".
Where the above matches resolve down to a single person (who may have more than
one matching name) already in the praxis, GNUmed will accept that match as the
person against whom to link the results.
Each praxis can define its own "equipoise" with respect to lab-generated match
difficulties... very likely different labs can spawn the same variants on
patient names. As soon as one of these variants is accepted into GNUmed, the
name-alias will permit results from any lab that would use this variant to
match.
Problems will become evident as soon as any one praxis observes excess
(frequent) patient auto-creations that must be merged. As soon as a praxis
identifies patients who have
the same date of birth
AND
the same surname
the same first or second name (maybe even just initials)
the same sex
on any alias (as Liz suggests will occur in very large praxes), then the
importer will smartly refuse to resolve what it cannot resolve uniquely, and
will instead auto-create a patient and let the praxis decide which patient to
merge the results under. The interesting thing here is the possibility of two
persons in a single praxis, where both persons have
date of birth = July 1, 1960
name = Smith, Mary Jane
sex = F
in which case the merging of the results into the correct person need not
bother to create another alias "Smith, Mary Jane", because that would be
redundant.
Where the above proves at a praxis level to be a frequent event, it would
constitute grounds to pressure the labs to begin using some other presumably
unique person identifier for the lab results, such as an "identity
issuer-unique number" combo typified by public and private health insurance
issuers. This we do already in BC (CA) using the "Personal Health Number".
My only other suggestion is that variability in a date of birth will denote
either a mis-entered version of a single truth, or competing versions of
"truth". Both are probably worth to "settle" at the praxis-lab administrative
level.
-- Jim
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