IWeb logo  IWeb 5.17.5 Administrator User Guide

Deduplication Properties

Authorized users can access the Deduplication properties by clicking on the Administration > Settings > Properties link, then clicking on the Deduplication category heading.

To configure the settings, enable (select) or disable (deselect) the options, enter any required information, and click Save at the bottom of the page. Changes affect users the next time they log in to the application or module.

Click Reset to erase new or updated entries and reset them as they were after the last submit was done.

The options and fields on this page are as follows:

Option/Field Description

Allow Providers to Manually Deduplicate

Select this option to view the manual deduplication queue for records that were submitted under the user's organization/facility. Requires the user to have the Allow Provider Manual Deduplication permission.

Dedup Vaccination Threshold

Enter a whole number to indicate the frequency of vaccination deduplication merges. This setting prevents the DTT process from reloading if the same vaccine family is administered within the set number of days. In Vaccination Deduplication, if any matching record is marked as Confidential, all records are updated to Confidential to ensure that the vaccination maintains its confidential status.

The current logic for checking if the vaccinations are on the same day continues to check only against the current date for direct data entry. This new logic applies to deduplication of batch loads and any scenario where vaccinations are re-linked.

NOTE: For Rabies post-exposure vaccine series, set this field to 1. This applies special logic to Rabies, which differs from the registry-wide setting. The Rabies series that needs to be accommodated regardless of the threshold setting is 0, 3, 7, 14, 21-28 days. The exception is for the 0- and 3-day doses.

Enable Forecasting and Geocoding when Deduplicating

Select this option to indicate to the deduplication process that forecasting and geocoding are allowed to occur.

Enable Patient Separation During Ambiguous ID

Select this option so that when a user selects that two patients are the same, a new patient master record for the previous patient is created and the information is not overwritten.

Enable auto merge on incomplete records that match on all population fields

Select this option to enable an automatic merge on incomplete records that match in all population fields. Deduplication is based on comparisons of pairs of patients.

If this option is not enabled, if one patient has a value populated in a field and the other patient does not, the field is not considered a match. If this option is enabled, logic is used to track when a field/pair comparison is "incomplete." If the patient has no fields that are not a match but does have fields that are "incomplete" and would have otherwise been queued for manual review, the patient is automatically merged.

For example, if the existing patient has:

  • First Name: Bob

  • Last Name: Smith

  • DOB: 01/01/1990

  • Mother's Maiden Name:  Jones

  • No other data populated

And the incoming patient has:

  • First Name: Bob

  • Last Name: Smith

  • DOB: 01/01/1990

  • SSN: 123-45-6789

  • No other data populated

These two patients are merged automatically and not queued for manual review. They are also merged automatically if the second patient has no other data populated, or if the first patient has the more complete record. However, they are not merged automatically if the first patient had a different SSN populated.

Special street address processing logic is also used. If the existing address is longer than eight characters and the full string exists within the incoming street address string, the two addresses are considered a match and the address is updated with the incoming address (the longer address is more likely to be accurate). This process uses the portion of the "mangled" (normalized) address prior to the state/zip code. Example:

  • Existing address: 1033 Pine Valley Road

  • Incoming address: 1033 Pine Valley Rd. #103

  • These addresses are considered a match and the address is replaced with the existing address.

Events included in recurring deduplication

Select the option(s) to indicate the events to include in the Recurring Duplication process. Examples:

  • Deduplicate contraindications

  • Deduplicate incoming patients

  • Deduplication vaccinations

  • Existing records scan

  • Link race records

  • Merge matched master records

  • Process manual records

  • Process provider mappings

Merge thresholds for the possible matches

Enter the values to enable the age matching logic for patients less than or equal to 18 years of age, and for patients greater than or equal 19 years of age. Note that the higher the merge threshold value, the more weight a field has when evaluating possible matches.

Name Uniqueness Deduplication

Select this option and enter the threshold values to enable the name uniqueness calculation. The thresholds represent the percentage of frequency. For example, the incidences of "JAMES" divided by the total number of records. The thresholds are a percentage defining the match level for uniqueness.

The deduplication logic is as follows: If the patient is otherwise a possible match and the first name and last name both match exactly, if the name is unique per the threshold configuration, allow an exact match on First Name, Last Name, and Birth Date.

Prevent Merge of Different Birth File Numbers

Select this option to enable the import logic to check to see if the patients have different birth file numbers. This prevents a merge if they are different. The logic does not apply to master merges (including user-reported duplicates).