Constituent ID -Unique Donor Identifier Number

Sherry Reynard

I have been in the Development department for 7 years and from even before I began in the departmetn the Constituent ID numbers assigned have always been the donors Medical Record Number if the donor had been a patient at our hospital.  If not then we used a "created" number system using the date we enter the donor (ie:  DO031814001).

By our using the MRN number it has been an asset in assisting with being a unique identifier within the organization as it is used in HR Dept and sent when I receive notices of terminations of employees and physicians in order to ensure I have the correct person as there are times we have the same names of people.  It also has been an asset when we imported patients information into R/E for specialized mailings.  By having this unique number the same as what the other internal departments use it has helped with preventing duplicate donors being entered in R/E.   For organizations or donors that have never been a patient we have used a number we created using the date we enter donor (ie:  DOO31814001).

A question recently arose as to whether or not we should continue to use the Medical Record Number as our unique identifer in R/E.  Would anyone be willing to share what they use as the Constituent ID at your organizations?  Do these numbers align with other numbers in your organization and is it necessary they align?   What pros and cons or hindrances you have experienced with the number system you use?  What Pros and Cons of using the MRN?

Thanks for any thoughts.

 Sherry Reynard, The Guthrie Clinic, Development Services Database Administrator

Joshua Bekerman bCLO bCRE

Sherry Reynard:

I have been in the Development department for 7 years and from even before I began in the departmetn the Constituent ID numbers assigned have always been the donors Medical Record Number if the donor had been a patient at our hospital.  If not then we used a "created" number system using the date we enter the donor (ie:  DO031814001).

By our using the MRN number it has been an asset in assisting with being a unique identifier within the organization as it is used in HR Dept and sent when I receive notices of terminations of employees and physicians in order to ensure I have the correct person as there are times we have the same names of people.  It also has been an asset when we imported patients information into R/E for specialized mailings.  By having this unique number the same as what the other internal departments use it has helped with preventing duplicate donors being entered in R/E.   For organizations or donors that have never been a patient we have used a number we created using the date we enter donor (ie:  DOO31814001).

A question recently arose as to whether or not we should continue to use the Medical Record Number as our unique identifer in R/E.  Would anyone be willing to share what they use as the Constituent ID at your organizations?  Do these numbers align with other numbers in your organization and is it necessary they align?   What pros and cons or hindrances you have experienced with the number system you use?  What Pros and Cons of using the MRN?

Thanks for any thoughts.

 Sherry Reynard, The Guthrie Clinic, Development Services Database Administrator

We don't integrate or import with any other systems, so we just use the RE assigned constituent ID number. 

What do you do with the Constituent ID when a donor becomes a patient?

Alan Kay

Sherry Reynard:

I have been in the Development department for 7 years and from even before I began in the departmetn the Constituent ID numbers assigned have always been the donors Medical Record Number if the donor had been a patient at our hospital.  If not then we used a "created" number system using the date we enter the donor (ie:  DO031814001).

By our using the MRN number it has been an asset in assisting with being a unique identifier within the organization as it is used in HR Dept and sent when I receive notices of terminations of employees and physicians in order to ensure I have the correct person as there are times we have the same names of people.  It also has been an asset when we imported patients information into R/E for specialized mailings.  By having this unique number the same as what the other internal departments use it has helped with preventing duplicate donors being entered in R/E.   For organizations or donors that have never been a patient we have used a number we created using the date we enter donor (ie:  DOO31814001).

A question recently arose as to whether or not we should continue to use the Medical Record Number as our unique identifer in R/E.  Would anyone be willing to share what they use as the Constituent ID at your organizations?  Do these numbers align with other numbers in your organization and is it necessary they align?   What pros and cons or hindrances you have experienced with the number system you use?  What Pros and Cons of using the MRN?

Thanks for any thoughts.

 Sherry Reynard, The Guthrie Clinic, Development Services Database Administrator

We too use the RE generated constituent ID number. This number is the first entry on our mailed out envelopes and is also contained as a reference in acknowledgement letters and is included in any tear-off or return medium. Under varying situations i.e. returned mail, donations or sign-ups etc, we can simply type in the constituent ID number in the search field and find the associated record.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 In a sense probably no difference to what you are doing however, under UK Data Protection (DP) and Information Governance (IG), using a personal identifying number such as you are doing would break a multitude of rules and leave us open to legal action. Cannot comment on US DP or IG.  RegardsAlan

Sherry Reynard

Josh Bekerman:

We don't integrate or import with any other systems, so we just use the RE assigned constituent ID number. 

What do you do with the Constituent ID when a donor becomes a patient?

If a donor becomes a patient and we come across it we change our ID number to correspond to the patient number.   

Sherry Reynard

Alan Kay:
We too use the RE generated constituent ID number. This number is the first entry on our mailed out envelopes and is also contained as a reference in acknowledgement letters and is included in any tear-off or return medium. Under varying situations i.e. returned mail, donations or sign-ups etc, we can simply type in the constituent ID number in the search field and find the associated record.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 In a sense probably no difference to what you are doing however, under UK Data Protection (DP) and Information Governance (IG), using a personal identifying number such as you are doing would break a multitude of rules and leave us open to legal action. Cannot comment on US DP or IG.  RegardsAlan

When it was questioned using patient numbers in any of our solicitations, as we also use the ID # on mailings as you do, to easily reference a donor when pulling up record, we were told at that time by our Compliance dept. it was ok as long as the number is within the brochure similar to like it is when we are mailed a bill from the hospital that contains the patient number. However, with rules and regulations changing over the years we may need to change how we assign ID's.    I am familir with R/E being able to automatically assign numbers.   Again, patient numbers were the ID's that from what I can tell is what was used when the hospital first went with the R/E system a long number of years ago, before my time here  : ) and it has always worked well and never seemed to be an issue.   

Laura Caswell

Sherry Reynard:

When it was questioned using patient numbers in any of our solicitations, as we also use the ID # on mailings as you do, to easily reference a donor when pulling up record, we were told at that time by our Compliance dept. it was ok as long as the number is within the brochure similar to like it is when we are mailed a bill from the hospital that contains the patient number. However, with rules and regulations changing over the years we may need to change how we assign ID's.    I am familir with R/E being able to automatically assign numbers.   Again, patient numbers were the ID's that from what I can tell is what was used when the hospital first went with the R/E system a long number of years ago, before my time here  : ) and it has always worked well and never seemed to be an issue.   

 I work at a university and we use the student id # (with some padded zeroes) when we create alum records. If we can get the student database id number for employees, we use that. If not we let RE generate id numbers. And for anyone not in our student database, we use let RE generate a number. It's very handy to have the student id number for alum for cross-referencing. Especially if there are any name changes or even address changes.

 laura