METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ASSOCIATING PATIENT IDENTIFIERS UTILIZING PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS

摘要

A method, apparatus and computer program product are provided to associate patent identifiers, such as by matching patient identifiers, utilizing principal component analysis. In the context of a method and for each of a plurality of patient identifiers, a set of vectors is determined that is representative of a plurality of components of a respective patient identifier. The method also performs a principal component analysis of each set of vectors, compares results of the principal component analysis of each set of vectors and determines whether two or more of the patient identifiers are associated with a same patient based upon a comparison of the results of the principal component analysis of each set of vectors.