Definitions for "Empi"
Electronic Health Record repositories are typically populated from patient encounters in different facilities. Patients may be identified differently in each facility. For example a patient may present to one hospital and be assigned a medical record number (MRN). This number is associated with the patient chart and is used in any electronic information communicated about the patient. The challenge for any Electronic Health Record that needs to present a patient centric health record is that the identifying information being sent with clinical data sent (typically via HL7) has different identifiers for the same patient depending on which facility the patient has visited. Enterprise Master Patient Indexes or EMPIs provide a cross facility client directory. Such a directory typically records: patient demographics local identifiers for each facility the patient has attended matching functions to determine if new patients registrations at a given facility should be matched to an existing entry in the client directory Electronic Health Records depend on EMPIs to allow the building of a patient centred health record.
Enterprise Master Patient Index (or Enterprise-wide Master Patient Index), are Master Patient Indexes which link several smaller organisation level MPIs together. http://www.ncvhs.hhs.gov/app3.htm Many software vendors use EMPI and MPI synonymously. http://www.infocomhealthsystems.com/master-patient-index.asp
Keywords:  kata, flight, literally, swallow
a kata (literally a swallow in flight)