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FAQs

Q. What is HIE?

A. The goal of a Health Information Exchange (HIE) is to drive towards efficient exchange of patient data, so that a unified and holistic view of patient data is obtained. This, in turn, will enable physicians to offer better care for patients because providers of care will have a complete picture including all available medical records.

In the context of the Indian Health Service (IHS), establishing an HIE has benefits for exchange of data among various regions at geographically diverse locations throughout the United States within the IHS network, and externally participating in the Nationwide Health Information Network (NwHIN) via CONNECT Gateway with other agencies.

Q. What is MPI?

A. MPI is the Master Patient Index. It is used to connect patient identities across organizations.

Q. What is a C32?

A. C32 refers to a Continuity of Care Documents (CCD) Clinical Summary document, which is an industry standard for transmitting summary patient data in Healthcare Information Technology Standards Panel C32 format. At IHS, the data for the C32 is extracted from RPMS and transmitted to Indian Health Service C32 repositories and authorized third parties using Web Services.

Q. What is C-Messaging?

A. C-Messaging includes a variety of document types, developed similarly to C32, to cover other types of patient data.

Q. What is the highest possible weight score? And lowest?

A. The highest possible score is 88. That can only happen if both records contain full name (first, last, middle), sex, DOB, SSN, complete address, phone, and email (and they're identical on all of these). The lowest possible score is -43. No record with a score of less than zero will be shown to the user.

Records with a score above 49 are an assumed match, and the system will automatically match these. Records with a score between 27 and 48 are marked as a "potential duplicate" for users to review and manually merge or resolve.

Q. On the DQM Patient Detail page, what is the AUXID tab?

A. This contains the HRN.

Q. Does the Consumer Preferences Profile GUI only set up permission to share patient data outside of IHS?

A. Yes, this particular tool is only used to establish patient consent to share information outside of IHS. These outside entities could include other government agencies, such as the VA and DoD, and private healthcare institutions.