Choosing the right Enterprise Master Person/Patient Index (EMPI) solution for your organization can be a challenge in a marketplace that offers varying philosophies, technology approaches, and degrees of accuracy with respect to the management of patient identities. One of the key factors successful organizations consider in an EMPI solution is system integration.

Disparate systems must integrate with the EMPI within an organization—usually via HL7 or APIs—so that patient records and activities such as merging and linking are communicated between all participating systems in real time. Interoperability—particularly through APIs—is foundational to an effective EMPI strategy, and it is a major goal of the Health & Human Services Office of the National Coordinator (ONC), which governs Health IT in this country.

While HL7 standards are widely known, the true challenge of system integration lies at the data layer. ARGO’s EMPI team has worked with data from over a dozen healthcare organizations and dealt with varying degrees of quality and completeness. The team is well versed in ARGO’s data extensibility capabilities, which integrate with the most complicated data.

For more information, download the “ARGO EMPI Overview” interview with David Engebos, President and COO of ARGO.