Clean, reliable person data is the backbone of operational efficiency, customer trust, and growth in health tech. The right Enterprise Master Person Index (EMPI) can tackle these data headaches, helping you work smarter, cut costs, and scale your platform with ease.
Before choosing an EMPI solution, ask yourself these eight questions to ensure it’s the right fit for your product and your growth goals.
- Is this EMPI purpose-built for healthcare’s unique challenges?
Managing patient identities in healthcare is a high-stakes challenge that demands precision and expertise. Yet, many organizations rely on homegrown systems or solutions repurposed from other industries — not designed for the unique complexities of healthcare data. While these options may seem cost-effective at first, they often fail to meet the accuracy, safety, and compliance standards required in healthcare.
To truly safeguard your data and operations, it’s critical to choose an EMPI built specifically for healthcare, one that understands the nuances of your environment and delivers the reliability you need.
- Can this EMPI handle seamless integration and interoperability?
Seamless integration is critical for health tech innovation. When you’re managing data from multiple platforms or navigating post-M&A complexities, your EMPI needs to enable smooth, reliable data flow.
An EMPI that’s tough to integrate can lead to incomplete or broken connections—complications that only multiply as your organization scales. It can also lead to long onboarding times to get the EMPI live and the data sources connected to it. According to McKinsey, organizations that shorten their health tech development cycles see a 15-20% increase in annual revenue when they get to market faster.
The right EMPI should simplify connections, support diverse systems, and adapt to complex workflows, keeping data flowing efficiently and your innovation on track.
- Does this EMPI use AI to automate and scale data accuracy?
AI-driven matching transforms data accuracy by uncovering patterns that conventional methods often overlook. It introduces automation that puts your data rules to work 24/7. This translates to less manual effort, better product performance, reduced OpEx, and faster progress on your product roadmap.
- How does this EMPI manage populations without reliable reference data?
Health tech organizations often work with diverse groups, such as minors protected by privacy regulations like COPPA, undocumented individuals, or those with limited credit histories. These populations are not always covered by reference data, making accurate identification a challenge.
Your EMPI should incorporate innovative approaches to tackle this issue, including AI-powered algorithms, to achieve accurate matching without relying on reference data.
- Can this EMPI solution scale to meet future growth?
As your product grows and your customer base expands, so does the complexity and volume of your data. Many EMPI solutions fall short under these pressures—struggling with high data volumes and real-time healthcare demands.
Look for an EMPI built to scale, with enterprise-grade reliability, high-availability SLAs, and the ability to support global growth—all while maintaining speed and precision.
- What measures does this EMPI take to prevent duplicate records and overlays?
Duplicate or mismatched records can compromise data integrity, disrupt product performance, and damage user confidence. A robust EMPI automates the detection and resolution of discrepancies, maintaining high data quality while enabling your technical teams to focus on advancing your product.
- What data stewardship capabilities does this EMPI offer?
A strong EMPI should go beyond basic matching to act as an AI-powered data steward. This means automated workflows that handle complex matching tasks 24/7, reducing manual intervention while adapting to your specific rules and preferences.
Transparency is critical. Your EMPI should offer full data lineage and traceability for every match or change made—so you can see exactly how decisions were made and trust the results.
- Does this EMPI offer flexible deployment options?
Health tech organizations operate in diverse environments—from cloud-first startups to enterprises with complex, global infrastructures. Your EMPI should adapt to your existing setup, not the other way around.
Whether you need SaaS or prefer an on-premises infrastructure to meet requirements, flexibility is key. Look for an EMPI that offers versatile deployment models tailored to your needs.
Grow Your Business with the Right EMPI Solution
An EMPI is the foundation of a scalable, future-ready health tech platform. Addressing these eight key considerations will help you choose a solution that not only tackles today’s challenges but also sets your organization up for long-term growth and innovation.
Start building a more efficient, scalable, and trusted data ecosystem with an EMPI purpose-built for the unique demands of health tech. Discover Rhapsody EMPI with Autopilot.
Shelley Wehmeyer, Sr. Director, Product and Partner Marketing Rhapsody
Rhapsody is a Digital Health Enablement Platform that accelerates adoption of innovative digital health solutions for care providers, health tech builders, and public health teams. We do this through API enabled interoperability and identity management solutions paired with our deep healthcare expertise. More than 1,700 provider groups, health systems, digital health companies and public health agencies globally rely on Rhapsody solutions. These solutions are flexible to meet customers where they are -- deployable in their cloud or ours