Patient Profile Components

A patient profile, also known as an enterprise object, is a set of information that describes characteristics of an individual patient in Sun Master Patient Index. Figure 1 illustrates an EUID tree for a patient profile, which shows all components of a profile.

Figure 1 Patient Profile Components

A patient profile contains two types of records:

• System Records - A system record is a set of information from an external system that shares data with Sun Master Patient Index. A patient profile might contain several system records.

• Single Best Record - The single best record (SBR) is a set of information derived from the best information from each system record in a patient profile (as determined by the survivor calculator). Each patient profile has only one SBR.

System Records

System records are different from the SBR in that each system record contains a system and local ID pair and only contains data from a specific system. The information in the system records of a patient profile is used to determine the best value for the SBR in that profile. If a patient profile only contains one system record, the SBR will be identical to that system record. However, if a patient profile contains multiple system records, the SBR might be identical to one system record but will more likely include a combination of information from all system records. Certain actions against a system record will cause the SBR to be changed, such as updating, deactivating, or merging a system record. Each active patient profile must have at least one active system record. If all system records in a profile are deactivated, then the entire profile will also be deactivated.

Single Best Record

The single best record (SBR) for a patient profile is made up of a combination of information from all active system records associated with that patient profile. The SBR represents the information that is determined by Sun Master Patient Index to be the most reliable and current of all system records in a patient profile. The SBR is dynamic and is recalculated each time an update is made to an associated system record, a merge or unmerge affects the patient profile, or a system record in the profile is deactivated or reactivated. You can use the overwrite capability of the Patient EDM to update the SBR directly or you can update a system record and allow the survivor calculator to determine how to update the SBR (for more information, see Survivor Calculator).

If you use the overwrite capability to update a field, that field remains locked and cannot be updated by changes to system records until the field is unlocked. For more information about the overwrite function and locked fields, see Updating the SBR and Updating System Records.

Survivor Calculator

The survivor calculator determines which information from each system record in a patient profile is stored in the SBR for that profile. The calculator uses information defined by the system administrator to calculate the SBR. By default, the survivor calculator uses a weighted strategy for most fields, using the relative reliability assigned to each system in combination with the reliability given to the most recently updated value.

For some fields, such as alias and auxiliary IDs, a union strategy is typically used. This means that all unique alias names and auxiliary IDs from all systems are included in the SBR. For detailed information about the survivor calculator and configuring the survival strategy, see Configuring Sun Master Indexes (Repository) and Understanding Sun Master Index Configuration Options (Repository).