Steps Forward on E-Prescribing

One challenge that remains is that though 85 percent of the pharmacies in the country can receive electronic prescriptions, there are still remain independent pharmacies in small communities that are not in the Surescipts Rx hub. Those pharmacies, however, can still receive a fax printed from an EHR that adds legibility.

So what can CIOs do to ensure their physicians are in the loop? “The CIOs need to primarily focus on solutions in their current EHR provider, make sure it has those e-prescribing capabilities,” says Shores. “They need to also make sure they have relationships with the intermediaries like Surescripts to be able to transmit to those local pharmacies in their communities.”

Steltenkamp says she believes e-prescribing is at the tipping point, because as more and more people use it, it truly becomes patient-centric, and everyone benefits. “Our challenge is to bring value to our community physicians,” she adds. “We want to hold out the carrot, not the stick.” She compares its similarities to the impetus of the stimulus dollars. “The message needs to be that you really need to work with the providers and e-prescribing is a way to facilitate the good care that they're giving, not hinder it.”

Takeaways

E-prescribing is reaching a tipping point health system-wide.

Hospitals and health systems are helping physicians to benefit from e-prescribing, even in cases where full EMR has not yet taken place.

e-prescribing and lab information will soon available in the same place.

Providers who do not use e-prescribing will begin to see penalties in 2012.

Healthcare Informatics 2010 May;27(5):24-26