Overview of the PIX/PDQ Profiles

The Patient Identity Cross-referencing (PIX) profile supports the cross-referencing of patient identifiers from multiple Patient Identifier Domains. These cross-referenced patient identifiers can then be used by “identity consumer” systems to correlate information about a single patient from sources that “know” the patient by different identifiers. This allows a clinician to have more complete view of the patient information.

The Patient Demographics Query (PDQ) profile provides ways for multiple distributed applications to query a patient information server for a list of patients, based on user-defined search criteria, and retrieve a patient’s demographic (and, optionally, visit or visit-related) information directly into the application.

Patient Identity Cross-referencing Profile

The following figure illustrates the actors involved in the PIX Profile. Here is a brief description of each of the actors involved below:

The Patient Identity Source Actor is a provider of unique identifier for each patient and maintains a collection of identity traits. The Patient Identity Source represents a system within a healthcare provider organization that assigns unique identifiers to patients.
The Patient Identifier Cross-reference Consumer Actor allows a system in a Patient Identifier Domain to determine the identification of a patient in a different Patient Identifier Domain by using the services of a Patient Identifier Cross-Reference Manager Actor.
The Patient Identifier Cross-reference Manager serves a well-defined set of Patient Identifier Domains. Based on information provided in each Patient Identifier Domain by a Patient Identity Source Actor, it manages the cross-referencing of patient identifiers across Patient Identifier Domains.

The view of the healthcare infrastructure from the perspective of the PIX profile is one consisting of two or more Patient Identifier Domains with a single Patient Identity Cross-reference Manager (PIX Manager). Within a particular identifier domain there are policies that specify how unique identifiers are assigned to patients. A Patient Identity Source actor feeds these assignments of patient identifiers to the PIX Manager for cross-referencing purposes. The assumption is that the PIX Manager is not responsible for improving the quality of identification information provided to it and the intent is to leave the responsibility for the quality and management of its patient demographics information and the integrity of the identifiers withing each Patient Identity Domain.

The following table lists the transactions that are defined within the PIX Profile.

Actors	Transactions	Optionality
Patient Identity Source	Patient Identity Feed (ITI-8)	R
Patient Identity Source	Patient Identity Management (ITI-30)	O
Patient Identifier Cross-reference Consumer	PIX Query (ITI-9)	R
Patient Identifier Cross-reference Consumer	PIX Update Notification (ITI-10)	O
Patient Identifier Cross-reference Manager	Patient Identity Feed (ITI-8)	R
Patient Identifier Cross-reference Manager	Patient Identity Management (ITI-30)	O
Patient Identifier Cross-reference Manager	PIX Query (ITI-9)	R
Patient Identifier Cross-reference Manager	PIX Update Notification (ITI-10)	R

Patient Demographics Query Profile

The Patient Demographics Query Profile (PDQ) provides ways for multiple distributed applications to query a patient information server for a list of patients, based on user-defined search criteria, and retrieve a patient's demographic (and optionally, visit or visit-related) information directly into the application.

There are two actors in the PDQ profile and they are briefly described below.

Patient Demographics Supplier - A system responsible for adding, updating and maintaining demographics about a patient, and additional information such as related persons (primary caregiver, guarantor, next of kin, etc.). It supplies new and updated information to the Patient Demographics Consumer. The Patient Demographics Supplier receives patient registration and update messages from other systems in the enterprise, probably as a result of PIX messages. It then responds to queries for information submitted to it by Patient Demographics Consumers. It then returns demographics information from the single domain that is associated with the application to which the query message is sent.
Patient Demographics Consumer – A system that uses demographic information provided by the Patient Demographics Supplier about a patient.

The following table lists the transactions that are defined within the PDQ Profile.

Actors	Transactions	Optionality
Patient Demographics Consumer	Patient Demographics Query (ITI-21)	R
Patient Demographics Consumer	Patient Demographics and Visit Query (ITI-22)	O
Patient Demographics Supplier	Patient Demographics Query (ITI-21)	R
Patient Demographics Supplier	Patient Demographics and Visit Query (ITI-22)	O

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