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Top 2008health IT issue: e-prescribing

This post on Health IT News makes this claim based on legislative efforts by John Kerry, and outspoken proponents such as Newt Gingrich.

This one sticking point, though;

Many groups say the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) rules prohibiting the electronic prescribing of controlled substances is the blocker to progress. Because of these rules, physicians are forced to use both paper and electronic methods to prescribe, keeping many from using electronic methods at all.

Caveats for e-prescribing

While searching the WSJ online for their coverage of e-prescribing, I ran across a letter posted by a physician in response the an op-ed piece published on Nov. 16, unimaginatively entitled "E-Prescriptions" written jointly by John Kerry and Newt Gingrich.

Steven Hanks, MD, Chief Medical Officer, The Hospital of Central Connecticut, New Britain, Conn. said:

First, in order for electronic prescribing to be truly effective, the information has to flow bidirectionally. Many patients have prescriptions written by a multitude of practitioners, which are then often filled at a number of different pharmacies. For warning alerts regarding interactions or duplications to be effective, the system needs to be able to access all the data.

Second, is our current inability to positively identify patients. Uninsured individuals sometimes "borrow" insurance cards of insureds in order to access needed medications. E-prescribing systems will do little to protect against errors in either of these regards. We should absolutely forge ahead with e-prescribing, but should simultaneously work to assure that all the data repositories talk to one another and that some method of definitively identifying patients, such as a biometric standard, be adopted as well.

These caveats bring up an important point. The ultimate goal in the use of digital technology to improve health care is collaboration, that is, eliminating the data silos that prevent the formation of an integrated system just as much as paper records. The efforts of Kerry and Gingrich to have the gov't provide small incentive for clinicians to start using e-prescribing systems is not enough, especially when it doesn't address the larger issue of collaborative efforts which is the transformative change that is needed.

Senatorial bi-partisan support for e-prescribing

John Kerry and Newt Gingrich are making their pitch for e-prescribing.

Besides Kerry, there are other sponsors for the "Medicare Electronic Medication and Safety Protection (E-MEDS) Act of 2007" of both parties in the House and the Senate.

According to Healthcare IT News:

Kerry is among the sponsors of bi-partisan legislation that would require physicians who treat Medicare patients to use electronic prescribing, starting Jan.1, 2011.

The bill would authorize Medicare bonus payments to e-prescribing physicians. The bonuses would begin in 2008. The bill also calls for a 1 percent bonus payment for claims that include e-prescribing.

 

Gingrich has a for-profit organization, the Center for Health Transformation, through which he discusses solutions to the problems of heathcare.

This sets the tone for more gov't-provided financial incentives to pull clinicians into the use of technology to streamline healthcare delivery. Push strategies in the form of mandates are falling by the wayside.

HHS head, Mike Leavitt blogs his support for ePrescribing

E-prescribing is not only more efficient and convenient for consumers, but widespread use would eliminate thousands of medication errors every year.

This is a quote from Mike Leavitt's blog post about his reaction to a recent meeting of the American Health Information Community (AHIC), which is an advisory committee that considers health information technology standards.

Leavitt uses an anecdote to show his action as Governor of Utah in motivating police officers to use a system of laptop entry of police reports, replacing the system of filling out a "stack of forms that was a quarter-inch thick" for each DUI arrest.  Some said they didn't have the keyboard skills to do this. His reaction was to make it mandatory.

This analogy doesn't quite fit entirely, since the most the police officers needed to invest was their time in learning how to manage touch typing. Leavitt doesn't think the added expense of an e-prescribing system is great enough for the government, as the largest payor for healthcare, not to consider a mandate.

OhioHealth partners with RxNT for ePrescribing

OhioHealth Adopts New ePrescribing System for All of Its 2,300 Physicians

This will provide all of OhioHealth's 2300 physicians a chance to use this ePrescribing tool the supports both Pocket PC and Palm OS.

The RxNT system will connect to the Pharmacy Health Information Exchange™, operated by SureScripts®, which facilitates the secure, electronic transmission of new prescriptions and refill requests between physicians and pharmacists. Today, more than 95 percent of all pharmacies in the United States are certified to connect to the Pharmacy Health Information Exchange.

Technorati Tags: OhioHealth, RxNT, Pharmacy Health Information Exchange, ePrescribing, SureScripts

Palm: ePrescribing Web page

This is Palm's present take on ePrescribing, featuring iScribe and PatientKeeper ePrescription. I wonder if these companies will be porting their software to the new Palm Linux OS, or if it will continue to run on Garnet (present Palm OS) on top of the Linux kernel.

Palm - Healthcare Solutions - ePrescribing

Technorati Tags: iScribe, PatientKeeper, Palm, Garnet, Linux

Kentucky funds ePrescribing

This online story reports on the grants to be provided by the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services that will help support physicians, pharmacists, and other healthcare providers who wish to invest in an ePrescribing system.

The grants will help fund the purchase of technology or services necessary to begin ePrescribing, which allows health care providers to securely submit prescriptions, refill authorizations and other pharmaceutical information to pharmacies.

(via iHealth)

Technorati: ePrescribing; Wikipedia: ePrescribing