This post is from an on-going series from our engineering blog, Shift6, which features developer-focused content. For the first part of the Redox Microservices Journey series, click here. 

I’ve probably seen 20 different articles since the election talking about echo chambers and the idea that social media (along with the people we surround ourselves with) simply echo back to us what we already believe to be true.

Managing patient IDs in healthcare IT is difficult. There's no way around it. Patient P at Health System H might have 20 different identifiers; at least one per software vendor, and in the case of the major EHRs like Epic and Cerner, they could have 5 different IDs for one patient just within that system. And, of course, when you look up that same patient in a different health system, they will have a completely new set of IDs.