Skip to site content

Master Patient Index (MPI)

The Master Patient Index identifies patients across separate clinical, financial and administrative systems and is needed for information exchange to consolidate the patient list from the various RPMS databases.

The MPI contains records for all the patients from all of the IHS facilities. They are supplied by RPMS in HL7 messages. Each facility record belongs to an enterprise record, which is created by the MPI. Two facility records that represent the same real-life person belong to the same enterprise record. An enterprise record contains its own set of patient demographics called the Single Best Record, which is calculated from the demographics data of its facility records. The MPI generates a unique patient ID, called an EUID, for each enterprise record.

The MPI Enterprise Record consists of one or more facility records. The best demographic information for the patient will be used to create the Single Best Record.

Facilities - What does this mean to you and how do you get started?

You can participate in patient summary exchange with confidence that you are getting highly qualified matches of patient data utilizing current standards and technology and therefore the best opportunity for patient care based on the most complete picture possible.

Each site will actively participate in the management of the MPI data, by evaluating and resolving any uncertainties in the matches.

To get started using the IHS MPI, please reach out to your local site manager.

MPI Tools

The following tools are provided to assist in the tasks associated with MPI management.

Data Quality Manager (DQM) Tool

The DQM allows users to look at patient demographic data in the Master Patient Index (MPI). It allows you to see how the MPI has identified definite and potential matches between patient records. It allows you to merge or resolve potential patient matches and make corrections and enhancements to these matches. Patient searches can use a patient's ID or demographic data.

Users at different sites enter patient information into the RPMS. From there, that information is transmitted to the central MPI through HL7 messages and stored in its database. DQM can pull up certain MPI data for searching, viewing, editing, and matching.

On the Person Search screen, a user can search by various methods, including the EUID, Local ID, SSN, and Demographic Data, which includes Date of Birth, Address, and Phone Number.

A list of enterprise records that match the search criteria is returned. This list includes information such as the EUID, Last Name, First Name, Date of Birth, and Weight. The weight is a number that indicates how strongly the listed record matches the search criteria.

Any enterprise record might have "potential duplicates", which are other enterprise records suspected of representing the same real-life person. By clicking the "View Dups" button in the Record Detail screen, the user is navigated to the Potential Duplicate Results page, where all the record's potential duplicates will be listed, with a weight indicating how similar they are. Clicking the "Compare" button will bring the records up side-by-side for easy viewing.

The user has the ability to either merge two records that are deemed to be duplicates, or indicate that two records are not duplicates by "resolving" the potential duplicate pair. When records are merged, the user specifies the 'surviving' EUID. By default, all the surviving demographics will be taken from this record, but the user can specify these values field-by-field if desired. The new combined surviving record will contain all the facility records from both of the merged enterprise records.

MPI Reporting Tool

The MPI Reporting tool provides the ability to run and manage reports such as the list of recent potential duplicates. These enable more effective and efficient management of patient demographic data in the MPI.

The reports are built using pre-determined criteria and some allow the user to select particular parameters, such as date ranges.

MPI Access Manager Tool

This tool enables management of user access to the Master Patient Index. This includes access to the DQM. New users need to be imported from the IHS Active Directory. One user may have multiple listings per Service.