Oracle Health is integrating ID.me identity verification into its healthcare software to support patient check-in and credentialing for clinicians who electronically prescribe controlled substances.
Patients using the integration will be able to verify their identity before arriving or during check-in, then choose which records they want to share. The companies say the process is intended to reduce repeated intake forms and make it easier to connect a patient with the right health information. The release describes a capability for organizations using Oracle Health solutions, not a requirement for every patient or healthcare provider.
The clinician side addresses electronic prescribing of controlled substances, or EPCS. Those prescriptions require a higher-assurance process for establishing and authenticating the prescriber’s identity. Oracle Health customers can now use ID.me’s EPCS credentialing service for that purpose. ID.me says more than 100,000 prescribers nationwide already use the service and that its broader network includes nearly five million medical professionals.
The patient and prescriber functions serve different needs. A patient’s verified identity can help staff retrieve and share the appropriate records during intake. A prescriber’s verified professional identity supports access to a regulated prescribing workflow. Oracle Health says the collaboration is designed to complement its work on health-data interoperability while keeping patients in control of the records they choose to share.
ID.me has been extending its reusable verification service across other sectors. It recently linked identity checks with Plaid bank-account ownership verification for government benefit payments. In that application, an agency can verify both an applicant and the account designated to receive funds. The Oracle integration applies the same broad idea of verified identity to health records and professional credentials, though the operational checks are different.
Healthcare identity is also becoming a focus of digital-credential policy outside the United States. The European Union recently set rules for healthcare identity attributes in European Digital Identity Wallets for cross-border record exchanges. Those rules concern government-issued wallet attestations rather than Oracle’s commercial integration, but both developments address the need to connect a person to the correct health information without relying only on repeated manual forms.
Sources: Oracle
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
