Health IT, Hospitals, Startups

Patient ID theft prevention company raises $15M to roll out biometrics tool nationwide

The founders of a health IT company CrossChx view fingerprint verification as the key to […]

The founders of a health IT company CrossChx view fingerprint verification as the key to addressing the pitfall-laden path to improving patient identification to prevent fraud and improve patient safety. In order to support the expansion of the business across the U.S., and to add staff, the company raised $15 million in a Series B round led by new investor Khosla Ventures and current investor Drive Capital, according to a company statement.

The company currently has 35 people and it wants to triple that to more than 100 employees, according to an emailed statement. A mobile platform is also in the works.

The company’s fingerprint identification system uses algorithms to instantly resolve the identities of patients in their network. It uses patient information from healthcare providers to create unique global identities for every patient. The company’s software  can instantly verify patient identity through fingerprint scanning and alert hospital personnel to potential medical record errors, the statement said. It is currently used at more than 100 hospitals across eight states but has set a goal of expanding it to every state by the end of the year.

To date, CrossChx has raised more than $20 million. Keith Rabois, a partner at Khosla Ventures, will join the board of directors “as an observer.”

Although security has been one driver of the company;s technology, another is simply organizational challenges. It cites duplicate medical records for a single patient as one source of confusion that can lead to unintended errors.

Its just as well that CEO Sean Lane and President Brad Mascho bring military and political backgrounds to the business because the patient ID debate has proven to be a political quagmire. In the past 17 years there have been a series of failed attempts to develop a national patient I.D  The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives recently announced it would launch a competition to award the most effective patient ID for patient safety and security protection needs.

A report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed an increase in data breaches between 2010 and 2013, reported by HIPAA-covered entities, and involving 29 million records. Most data breaches resulted from overt criminal activity. But the study focused on breaches that had already be recognized and reported and which affected at least 500 people.

The report concluded: “Strategies to mitigate the risk and effect of these data breaches will be essential to ensure the well-being of patients, clinicians, and health care systems.”

 

[Photo credit: Fingerprint photo from flickr user CPOA]

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