Voluntary Universal Healthcare Identifier
Mission Statement
The goal of the Voluntary Universal Healthcare Identification project is to make unique healthcare identifiers available at no cost to anyone who wants one to enable error-free linkage of clinical information, enhance the privacy of patient information, improve the quality of medical care, reduce the rate of medical errors, decrease the incidence of healthcare-related identity theft, and help control healthcare costs.
The VUHID Project
The Voluntary Universal Healthcare Identification (VUHID, pronounced 'view-hid') system is a project arising from the ASTM medical standards organization E 31 to make globally-unique healthcare identifiers available at no cost to any person who wishes to have one. These identifiers can be used to establish your identity to any physician that you visit who is participating in the VUHID network. The identifier can be used to link your various medical records to ensure that you and your physicians can obtain access to your comprehensive medical record. In addition to open voluntary identifiers (OVIDs) there are private voluntary identifiers (PVIDs) that can be used by you to handle sensitive medical information in a manner where you can control who knows the identity of the person associated with your clinically sensitive information. This VUHID web site explains what the VUHID system is, how it functions, what OVID and PVID identifiers look like, how they function, when and how you can expect to be able to request such identifiers and what the benefits of the system will be.
The VUHID system is currently being developed under the auspices of a small independent group of people. Although there are not yet definite schedules, it is the hope that this system will become operational in the first half of 2008. In the interim patients, physicians, care delivery organizations and clinical information sharing organizations can use this web site to learn about what is being planned, submit questions and provide feedback and suggestions concerning the project.
For further information on the VUHID project you may want to consult the following resource: