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Privacy-preserving record linking (PPRL) is a mechanism for securely matching patient data across sources.

Traditionally, healthcare data interoperability implementations have used master patient indexes with a centralized source of demographic information to perform record linking. Using privacy-preserving record linking (PPRL) instead improves upon traditional implementations.

Radiant hash tag

Hashing

Before storing a record, the PPRL performs an irreversible hash operation on the demographic data. All matching processes use the hashed values, thus “blinding” the data.

Radiant security shield

More secure

By one-way hashing plaintext strings to long sequences of semantically meaningless numbers and letters, patient data is more secure. This strategy ensures that patient demographic data stored in a centralized index is unrecoverable.

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Why use CareEvolution’s Identity?

  • Automated, but flexible

    Identity’s PPRL techniques perform the vast majority of linking hands-off, but allows for manual review where appropriate.

  • Cloud native

    The Identity API has modern, cloud native architecture.

  • Standardized

    Demographic information is cleaned so comparing this information yields meaningful results.

  • Multiple linking strategies

    Identity determines a final link status using multiple linking strategies, including deterministic and probabilistic record linking.

  • Proven

    Identity is based on a mature, complex set of algorithms developed and refined by CareEvolution over the past 15+ years.

Identity experience

  • 0 False positive errors
  • 200M+ Lives

How it works — simple matching example

Matching Diagram

Record Linking

Identity performs this matching process for all demographic fields to determine which records belong to the same individual. It minimizes false positives by only linking records when there is high confidence of a match.

Graphic showing linked patient records

Hashing

Before storing a record, Identity performs an irreversible hash operation on the demographic data. The service only stores and performs match operations with the hashed values, not the original values. This makes it “blinded.”

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Standardized and Hashing Charts

Trusted by leading healthcare organizations

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Learn more about how the Identity PPRL works.