Pharmacy

To date, ONC and CMS have released 106 FAQs on a wide range of topics—computerized physician order entry (CPOE), calculation of a Medicaid hospital’s electronic health record (EHR) incentive payments, and the registration process, for example. Meeting earlier this week, committee members explored how best to meet future meaningful use requirements. For example, should Stage 2 build incrementally from Stage 1 or should there be a set of larger steps structured around measuring and improving patient outcomes?

With the release of the meaningful use requirements, the switch from paper-based to electronic health records has begun in earnest. CIOs and experts say that the transition can be made without losing sight of security and privacy concerns.

I spoke with Joy Grossman, M.D., earlier this week on her recent electronic prescribing study with the Center for Studying Health System Change. I was initially puzzled by one of the main findings that a chunk of doctors (23.1 percent) who had e-prescribing in their practices used it only occasionally or not at all. And one step further, fewer than a quarter of doctors with systems that have advanced functions—identifying potential drug interactions, transmitting prescriptions to pharmacies electronically, and checking patient formulary information— routinely used all of them. I wondered why clinicians wouldn’t use a tool they already had that made prescribing a lot easier and helped check for drug interactions.

In this three-part series on medication administration, HCI looks at the information exchange points in the process where errors are most likely to