[Answered]: General Hospital knew they had a problem with…

General Hospital knew they had a problem with duplicate health records and needed to clean up the MPI before the implementation date for the EHR in order to get the best results. A consulting firm was hired and a review of the data confirmed this problem when 3,000 potential duplicate health records issued over the past five years were identified. The hospital started the MPI clean-up process by educating their patient registration staff on proper search strategies, questions to ask the patient, the importance of a unit health record, and other related topics. This education was an important first step so that additional duplicate health records would not be assigned while the clean-up process was going on. Once the training was complete, the consulting firm began cleaning up the MPI. The consultants reviewed the potential duplicate health records and merged the records where appropriate. They also ensured the health records were merged in other information systems used throughout the healthcare facility. They provided documentation to General Hospital showing which health records were and were not duplicates based on their review.