eprescribing

Study: Abbreviations cause 5 percent of drug errors

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 06:59:55 -0400

Here's another argument for the adoption of eprescribing. Prescription abbreviations generated about 5 percent of all medication errors between 2004 and 2006, according to a Joint Commission study. Researchers with the Joint Commission studied 643,151 total medication errors reported through medication error-reporting program Medmarx. Of those, the Commission said 4.7 percent (or 29,974 errors) happened because of abbreviation use.

The abbreviation most frequently associated with errors was QD, substituted for "once daily." This abbreviation is on a Joint Commission list of "do not use" abbreviations.

To learn more about the study:
- read this Modern Healthcare article

Related Articles:
Nursing home drug errors remain hidden. Report
Drug errors harm 1.5 million per year: IOM. Report
Press release: Most Americans would prefer to get meds from MDs. Release
IBM offers RFID in fight against counterfeit drugs. Report

MA tops e-prescribing list

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 19:01:35 -0500

While state governments are doing what they can to promote all kinds of health IT initiatives, none are more popular than e-prescribing. And when it comes to e-prescribing, it seems no state has gotten more of a jump on the matter than Massachusetts, which just won an e-prescribing leadership award handed out by some national community pharmacy groups. The Safe-Rx award, which is given out by the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, the National Community Pharmacists Association and trade group SureScripts, also singled out Rhode Island, Nevada, Delaware and Maryland for the top of its list. The groups ranked the states on how many new prescriptions and refill responses were routed over the SureScripts Pharmacy Health Information Exchange in 2006. In states where e-prescribing efforts are flourishing, it's typically been where community pharmacies sunk extra dollars into upgrading their computer systems, the groups said.

To learn more about the awards:
- read the SafeRx press release

Related Article:
SureScripts adds ePrescribing functionality. Report

Report: Nurses short on IT training

Thu, 07 Sep 2006 20:01:38 -0400

Healthcare IT is all the rage--from electronic medical records to ePrescribing, technology promises to save time, save money and reduce medical errors. Hospitals are pouring money into IT initiatives but a recent study published in eWeek finds that nurses are being overlooked when it comes to IT training. Of the 559 nurses surveyed, "one-quarter indicated they had received no IT training on the job over the last year, while another 56 percent said they had gotten only between one and eight hours of IT training." Over half of the nurses reported that receiving more IT training would help them better perform their duties. These numbers are troublesome considering that 44 percent of nurses reported using IT for three or more hours a day. And despite the fact that nurses and physicians are the ones using new technology on a day-to-day basis, the study found that both nurses and physicians are often excluded from selecting which IT system a hospital will use. There was one positive finding however: Although IT has hit a few bumps, an overwhelming majority of nurses say they believe IT promises to help them improve patient care.

For more on the study:
- check out this eWeek report

PDA use said to be at "tipping point"

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 19:01:37 -0500

The personal digital assistant appears to have reached the tipping point in healthcare, according to a wealth of new evidence. In an opinion piece for the California Health Care Foundation, health economist Jane Sarahson Kahn writes that the evidence is now fairly conclusive. A report by Manhattan Research in December found that 50 percent of physicians are using PDAs. Another recent study found that more than 60 percent of physicians using drug reference software reported avoiding at least one adverse event. Doing particularly well as a result of the trend is Epocrates, the company that makes the most widely used drug reference software on the market. Epocrates' business model is currently based on mining its user base, but it's trying to get involved with transactions like ePrescribing. PDAs are currently used far less for transactions than for reference.

- read this article from iHealthBeat.org
- see my blog entry on The Health Care Blog

SureScripts adds ePrescribing functionality

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 19:01:39 -0500

SureScripts, the ePrescribing network owned by the large pharmacy chains, announced that it will be providing medication history and patient formulary and eligibility information later in the year. SureScripts will use technology from Initiate software, a vendor of enterprise master patient index software, which will integrate information from the various pharmacies on the network. SureScripts is important for ePrescribing's advance as it gives a network for application vendors to "plug into" without having to create their own connection to pharmacies. Now with medication histories and other data added, the information should be more valuable to clinicians and patients. ePrescribing is still used by fewer than 20 percent of physicians.

- see this release from Initiate

Palm plans healthcare push

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 19:01:39 -0500

An article in MarketWatch describes the change in the PDA market over the last decade and future challenges ahead particularly in the convergence of the PDA and the smart phone. Palm Computing is taking advantage of that market and and is making a play in healthcare, where it sees an opportunity for growth. FierceHealthcare met with the Palm healthcare team recently. Palm estimates that nearly 60 percent of physicians have a PDA--predominantly to look up reference information like Epocrates, and for calendaring. Of course the use of PDAs and smart phones (like Palm's Treo or RIM's Blackberry) for transactions like charge capture and ePrescribing is much lower, at perhaps 10 to 15 percent.

Palm also believes that while only some 15 percent of nurses are using a PDA, that market has great potential for expansion. In addition, Palm's new Treo using the Windows mobile operating system now gives it access to a broader market, including vendors like ZixCorp who's applications are built on Windows. But while they've been dominant in stand-alone PDAs, Palm will face competition in the expanding market as healthcare starts to integrate PDAs and smart phones. That competition may even include Apple, which is rumored to be bringing out an iPod smart phone.

- read this article from Marketwatch

ALSO NOTED: Shares of Allion drop; New York Hospitals face budget crunch; and much more...

Sun, 12 Mar 2006 19:00:50 -0500

> Add a new group to the list of those complaining about the new Medicare drug benefit: Pharmacists say the new plan is hurting them economically. Article

> The Boston Globe reports that healthcare execs are emerging as the state's new power elite. Article

> The Bush administration is learning that calling for transparency in healthcare and actually achieving it are two very different things, argues Sarah Lueck in The Wall Street Journal. Article (sub. req.)

> OmniCell will test a system that uses a bedside bar code reader to prevent medical errors. The pilot will be at Overlake Hospital Medical Center. Release

> Six weeks after the fact, Medco says it lost a laptop containing personal health information on thousands of patients. Article

> Shares of Allion Healthcare dropped sharply on Friday after the provider of pharmacy and disease management services to patients with HIV lowered its estimates for the last quarter. Article

> In the UK, Alliance UniChem and several partners are providing the technological backbone underpinning the National Health Service ePrescribing effort. Article

> New York City public hospitals are projecting a $500 million deficit this year. Mayor Michael Bloomberg calls the problem one of the most serious the city faces. Article

> Killer nurse Charles Cullen is ordered bound and gagged and eventually dragged from the courtroom, as a Pennsylvania judge hands him six more life sentences for his murders at hospitals in the state. Article

And Finally... The sex scandal at San Diego Children's Hospital worsens as the respiratory therapist involved admits molesting "countless" disabled and brain damaged children. Bail is set at $5 million. Article

ALSO NOTED: The HSA debate; Mass General in deal with Amgen; and much more...

Thu, 02 Mar 2006 19:00:50 -0500

> Are HSAs like hybrid cars: environmentally sensitive and forward-thinking? Rep. Bill Thomas (R-CA) thinks so. Blog

> Are HSAs the mother of all tax breaks for the wealthy, or the future of self insurance? Another review. Article

> University Hospital in Syracuse is issuing all visitors high-tech day passes. The badges carry the visitor's name, destination, the date and a full-color photo. Article

> Mass General is said to be near a deal with Amgen that will give it a rich payout for its role in developing the rheumatoid arthritis drug Enbrel. Article

> Per-Se Technologies and Allscripts sign a multi-year deal that will link Allscripts ePrescribing software to Per-Se's and the Surescripts transaction processing network. Per-Se owns the transaction network of the former NDCHealth. The company will also resell Allscripts EMR. Release

> An autism group claims the CDC broke HIPAA rules while conducting a study on the condition. Article

> Blogger Tim Gee has an excellent post analyzing the reasons outside companies like IBM have problems when they enter the healthcare space. Blog

> Orlando-area Parrish Medical Center says it will use Galvanon's MediKiosk and online bill pay system. Article

> Rumor Mill: Health IT company Misys and mTuitive are said to have formed a partnership. mTuitive makes software for clinical data capture. Web site

> Hospitals in Kentucky would be forced to post price and quality information on the Web if pending legislation passes. Article

> And Finally... A well-known psychiatrist at the University of California Irvine is said to have lost $1.3 million to a Nigerian Internet scam. Amazingly, the often-mocked scam has become a leading source of revenue for the country. The Nigerian government says it has seized $700 million in related cases over the past 2 years. Article

Editor's Corner

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 19:01:40 -0500

More encouraging news about ePrescribing this morning as the Henry Ford Health System (and its subsidiary Health Alliance Plan) is trumpeting its successful implementation of a system backed by PBM giant Medco and the big auto makers. As expected, ePrescribing reduces medical errors and increases the use of generics (and hence lowers drug costs for payers). That's why ePrescribing is getting a big push from payers. It also saves time in the pharmacy since it's easier and more efficient to process a script electronically than for the pharmacist to try to read the doctor's scribble and type it in manually. To that end, the big PBMs have set up a network (RxHub) which implants formulary information into ePrescribing applications, and the pharmacies have set up another (Surescripts) which will accept electronic scripts. The only problem is getting doctors to use them.

So far, only 15 percent of physicians are using these tools, and they don't really care about whether it improves patient safety or reduces branded drug use. What they do care about is whether ePrescribing saves them time, and whether it saves their office staff time (and hence reduces their over-time payments). In fact, done right, ePrescribing does do those things, but the sponsors of these studies, like the autos and Medco, need to get that message out first, rather than plugging the issues of patient safety and generic substitution. - Matthew

ePrescribing project enjoys early success

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 19:01:37 -0500

The Henry Ford Medical Group filled more than 500,000 prescriptions during the first year of one of the largest ePrescribing projects in the country, according to sponsors. The ePrescribe Initiative is a joint initiative of General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler and the Henry Ford Health System. The technical aspects of the project are being managed by Medco. Organizers certainly have reason to be pleased. They claim more than 80,000 prescriptions were changed after drug-interaction alerts. The generic use rate at Henry Ford also climbed 7.3 percent, saving the system about $3.1 million.

- see this article from the Detroit Free Press
- see this release from Henry Ford Health System