At the top of the documentation page for xlsread there is warning that xlsread is not recommended and it suggests alternative functions (readtable, readmatrix).
If you're checking that a particular header (variable name) exists, you can use those function to read in just the header row(s).
If you're checking if a paricular name and ID exists you'll need to read in the entire table and the search the name and ID columns (hint: isequal, strcmpi, ismember).
If you get stuck and have any problems, show us where you're at and describe the issue.
