VUHID & GPII Frequently Asked Questions

• Why are the identifiers so long?

  VUHID identifiers are designed to be robust, flexible and durable. We cannot currently anticipate all the ways in which they will be used, nor can we predict how quickly the VUHID system will be widely adopted. The VUHID identifier design includes extra capacity to ensure that the system can continue to serve the emerging and evolving needs of healthcare for the foreseeable future.

• Why not just use the social security number?

  The ability to use the social security number (SSN) as a healthcare identifier has been carefully examined. It has been determined that this approach to a universal medical identifier has a number of drawbacks and risks, including:

  • There is no way to dedicate the SSN exclusively to the needs of healthcare.
  • Trying to adapt the SSN so that it can support the needs of healthcare would be prohibitively expensive and take many years to accomplish. Perhaps surprisingly it is much less expensive to implement the VUHID system than to "fix" the SSN.
  • There is no check digit capability in the SSN so it is not possible to detect errors in data entry
  • It is not possible to achieve the privacy requirements of healthcare using the SSN as an identifier.

• What is the relationship between the VUHID project and the federal government?

  There is no relationship. The VUHID system is a private project, supported by GPII, a non-profit organization dedicated to the development and deployment of VUHID. GPII is implementing VUHID as a voluntary system in order to gain public trust and provide the resulting patient benefits to as many people as possible as quickly as possible. GPII believes that the VUHID system should be kept permanently separate from any federal control, oversight or funding. VUHID identifiers can be used to support personal identification activities in support of the NHIN being promoted by the Office of the National Coordinator for Healthcare Information Technology (ONC, an office in the Department of Health and Human Services), but there is no formal relationship between ONC or any other government agency and the VUHID system.

• Who is running the VUHID project?

  Global Patient Identifiers, Inc. (GPII), a non-profit organization, was formed specifically to develop and deploy the VUHID system. Go to the About section of this web site for more information on GPII, including our Board of Directors and supporting organizations.

• What other purposes besides healthcare activities will the VUHID system serve?

  None. The VUHID system is dedicated solely and exclusively to serving the needs of healthcare.

• What about those who choose not to participate in the VUHID system?

  If someone chooses not to participate in the VUHID system nothing changes from what they are now doing. Their medical records will continue to be linked using the demographic matching and linking capabilities offered by EMPI systems. This means that, as is the case today, they will face the inconvenience of repeatedly having to provide their demographic information for identification purposes. Because this information will need to be stored, transmitted and used repeatedly, these persons are also at a permanently increased risk of identity theft. Without having the benefits offered by PVIDs, they will have less control of the privacy of their medical information. These patients also face higher risk of medical errors due to identification mistakes. Information used by their physicians to make medical decisions may be incomplete or, much worse, may be incorrectly merged with portions of someone else's medical information.