Health care industry leaders held a congressional briefing to implore the U.S. Senate to fund the creation of a patient identifier, TechTarget reports. The House of Representatives voted in June to approve the funding for identifiers, which was banned and removed from the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in 1998. "Exchanging medical records between provider organizations becomes problematic without a reliable way of identifying the patient," Forrester Analyst Jeff Becker said at the briefing. The American Health Information Management Association and College of Healthcare Information Management Executives added in a joint statement that lifting the ban would help to identify ways to limit medical errors and protect patient privacy.
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