Has The Time Come For Records Standardization?

The financial cost of duplicate and outdated patient files has been a chronic condition in the healthcare industry, but the demands of the post-COVID-19 landscape—such as addressing “long-haul” issues, the potential need for boosters and actions on future variants, and interacting with millions of remote patients—make records standardization even more essential, yielding more efficient provider operations, billing, and, ultimately, better patient outcomes.

Records standardization entails at least three types of conformity: first, establishing which data fields are required versus requested so as to prioritize the ability to identify and subsequently merge or track patient data; second, making the fields consistent across data forms, again to ensure that information captured at various points in a patient’s healthcare journey can be compiled into a single, accurate view; and third, defining what the specific requirements of any data field might be—for instance, are months noted in fields for dates expressed in one or two digits?—to make the records more reliably searchable.

When you consider the added challenge of incorporating the volume and variety of data that is coming into systems now that patients are returning for care that was postponed by the pandemic, the time for records standardization has come.