Accepted for/Published in: Online Journal of Public Health Informatics
Date Submitted: Oct 18, 2024
Date Accepted: Jun 20, 2025
Use of Biometrics for Records Deduplication: A Case Study of the National Data Repository in Nigeria.
ABSTRACT
Background:
Nigeria has made significant investments in client-level electronic health systems, including the Nigeria Medical Record System (NMRS) and the National Data Repository (NDR), with funding from the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC). A biometric system was used across the U.S. CDC supported program in Nigeria to consistently track and monitor service uptake by PLHIV during this period. The system was used to conduct deduplication analysis with the goal to prevent double counting and improve data integrity across all the U.S. CDC supported treatment sites.
Objective:
We describe the fingerprint biometric system in Nigeria and the process used for deduplicating health records of PLHIV, including preliminary results.
Methods:
The fingerprint biometric system leveraged the availability of the electronic NMRS at health facilities and the NDR. The integration of fingerprint biometric module into the NMRS enabled fingerprints capture using SecuGen devices. Stakeholder engagement and capacity building were conducted with PLHIV and health facility staff for fingerprint capture, storage, and transmission of the fingerprint templates to the NDR. Deduplication of the fingerprint templates was conducted in the Automated Biometric Information System (ABIS) that is integrated with the NDR.
Results:
We implemented fingerprint capture for 1,538,971 PLHIV to deduplicate records from 1,141 treatment sites (health facilities and community sites) to improve the reliability and uniqueness of the system of records. Preliminary data showed that of the 1,538,971 records assessed by 30th June 2024, 1,520,187 of the active records (98.78%) had valid fingerprints and 1,264,299 (83.17%) of the records with valid fingerprint were unique.
Conclusions:
The implementation of biometric system using fingerprint data allowed the identification of potentially duplicate records for resolution, thereby improving the quality of HIV treatment data for HIV program planning. Clinical Trial: Not applicable
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