National Patient Master Index in Singapore

It has been the practice of hospitals and medical institutions to keep their patients' medical records. Access to such valuable information will be confined within the respective health institutions if there is no proper infrastructure to facilitate sharing of the information. On the other hand, it has been the wish of medical professionals, as well as patients who frequent hospitals and medical institutions that patients' medical records, especially essential medical conditions, are readily available, whenever required, regardless of the health institution by which the patient is being attended to. In response, the National Patient Master Index (NPMI) system was conceived and implemented by the Singapore Ministry of Health in 1994. The NPMI system aims at providing a patient database at national level that allows authorised users faster access to a patient's essential medical data thereby facilitating patient management. This paper describes the implementation of the NPMI system, its data elements, system functionality and access control to address data confidentiality and privacy.