A petition from the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) that calls for the development of a voluntary patient safety identifier has officially launched and is now open for signatures.
Since 1999, the federal government has been prohibited from spending public funds on the development of a national patient identifier (NPI). When the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was signed into law in 1996, it originally required that all Americans be issued a unique patient identifier based on the potential benefits they could bring to healthcare. However, after a 1998 federal hearing caused a public outcry due to invasion of privacy claims, Congress prohibited the use of federal dollars to create such a solution.
