Duplicate Defense

In our quest to bring the highest standards of Data Quality to healthcare, Tekizma presents Duplicate Defense -a product that be employed by enterprise owners to to find duplicate or linked records both within and across databases.

Maintaining data in healthcare systems is paramount to the consistent delivery of high-quality care. A key attribute of data quality is that each and every record in a system should represent a unique entity. Yet duplicate records are a ubiquitous burden on data quality, especially in the healthcare industry in which common standards for data collection, storage and interoperability have yet to be consistently implemented. For example, the average duplicate rate for a single hospital can range from between 5-10%; for integrated delivery networks (IDNs), the duplicate rate can reach levels of 25% (McClellan 2009; Sheridan & Fox 2004).

Duplicate records can arise for a variety of reasons, ranging from typographical errors to multiple or mishandled intake events. Yet something so seemingly innocuous can have serious adverse effects on patient safety. Duplicate records have been responsible for missed laboratory test results (Joffe et al 2012), longer wait times in ambulatory care (Stiell et al 2003), the administration of medication or care to the wrong patient (Bittle et al 2007; McCoy et al 2012), and outright denial of care (McClellan 2009; Pesce 2003). The financial costs of duplicate records is significant as well (McClellan 2009, Sheridan & Fox 2004, Thornton & Hood 2005).

Duplicate Defense can protect your customers and stakeholders from these kinds of results. Developed in conjunction with experts in healthcare information management, it was initially designed to operate in the healthcare industry; it is nevertheless flexible and powerful enough to digest any administrative dataset in any industry. Our product utilizes state-of- the-art machine learning techniques ensure unprecedented levels of accuracy and system-to- system flexibility.

To learn more about Data Quality, Linked & Duplicate Records, as well as how Duplicate Defense addresses these problems, please contact us.