Reducing duplicate patient creation using a probabilistic matching algorithm in an open-access community data sharing environment.

In an open-access community data sharing environment, Intermountain Health Care (IHC) is managing the creation of duplicate patient records through a probabilistic matching algorithm that allows the threshold limits for the returned set to be dynamically assigned to the source system. For internal hospital systems, the rate of duplicate creation was cut 30% in the first 6 months. For IHC's first community data sharing partner, the rate of duplicate creation has been maintained below the acceptable range for the internal Health Plans rate.