Bruce Slater, MD wrote:
>In thinking about ways to build modular functionality, there are some things
>that would be helpful and could possibly be built for other purposes and
>used for open source EMR development.
>
>I am thinking of an Enterprise Master Patient Index - to identify all the
>patients, providers and staff unambiguously in a large institution or
>network for positive identification and authentication. Specifically, does
>anyone know a good algorithm for comparing a typed in name against a
>database of names, given all the world wide variations in naming
>conventions? The Soundex is a simplistic one. There must be a systematic way
>that has been written about in the literature.
>
I have seen a good implementation from the people at the Heart Institute
in Brazil, and I believe they would share it. Try mailing Fabiane
Bizinella at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The reason they have done this is that Brazil has all kinds of people,
with german, spanish, chinese, indigenous etc names - and it is common
for people to know how to say someones name but not spell it. So they
have some sophisticated phonetic matching happening.
- thomas beale
