Identifying Patients via Biometrics for Chile's Healthcare

Situation

Chile offers a near universal health coverage to its citizens with a basic benefit package shouldered by health providers, but it still needed a shift towards a more unified and equitable healthcare system. Since the 1:1 system was not reliably working, the Ministry of Health was in need of a solution to identify patients even without IDs to check if they have insurance coverage. This is especially important in cases where a patient is unconscious as medical staff could not readily identify the individual, which is essential in retrieving a patient’s medical history. Furthermore, the ministry also recorded fraudulent attempts from those without any medical coverage.

Challenge

Manually checking IDs to verify the identity of patients proved to be ineffective. In some cases, healthcare professionals urgently needed a patient’s medical history from major hospitals or rural clinics to make a proper diagnosis. Having immediate access to such data is fundamental for the daily operations of the healthcare system.

A new system had to be developed to identify patients and make the information accessible across various facilities in the country.

Solution

Innovatrics Automated Biometric Identification System (ABIS) was integrated into the new patient registration and identification scheme developed in cooperation with local integrator, Zeke. It is able to accurately identify patients even in the absence of IDs by using fingerprints and faces. By implementing Segmentation SDK, the system can also separate fingerprints into individual fingers, considerably increasing the likelihood of identification.

With its open architecture, Innovatrics ABIS was seamlessly integrated into the existing infrastructure and can easily be connected to the national registry in the future. Designed for large scale enrollment, it can accommodate up to 16 million enrollees.

Result

After the deployment of Innovatrics ABIS, patient identification and verification has greatly improved. Because of the new system, healthcare programs and services can securely be delivered and enjoyed by the legitimate beneficiaries. Both major hospitals and local clinics can similarly enroll new patients into the system, and at the same time, obtain access to the database for reliable patient identification. Medical personnel and patients alike enjoy a seamless experience in providing and receiving quality health care.

With our proactive customer care, the Ministry of Health in Chile received excellent support in every stage of the project. Innovatrics’ industry-leading technology makes the new system scalable and open to more capabilities benefiting citizens as Chile expands its ecosystem of national identification in the future.