Which system is essential for tracking a patient’s multiple hospitalizations?

The correct choice is based on understanding the role of the Master Patient Index (MPI) in healthcare settings. The MPI is essential for accurately identifying and linking a patient’s multiple encounters across various settings, including different hospitalizations. It serves as a critical component in ensuring that each patient's demographic information is consistently recorded and can be retrieved across different departments and facilities. This enables healthcare providers to have a comprehensive view of a patient’s medical history, thereby facilitating coordinated care and improving patient safety.

In the context of tracking multiple hospitalizations, the MPI’s ability to maintain unique identifiers for patients ensures that all records associated with a particular individual can be easily accessed and managed. This tracking is crucial in avoiding duplicate records and ensuring continuity of care.

The other options, while important in their respective functions, do not serve the primary purpose of tracking multiple hospitalizations as effectively as the MPI does. Clinical Data Repositories (CDRs) focus on storing and accessing clinical data, Computerized Provider Order Entry (CPOE) is primarily used for managing orders and prescriptions, and Registration-Admitting-Discharge-Transfer (R-ADT) systems track patients during their stay in a specific institution but do not manage their overarching hospitalization history as comprehensively as an MPI.