When Life Depends on a Decimal Point
95% of all prescriptions nationally are handwritten and 30% require a call back from the pharmacy. That’s unsettling on two fronts. First, we all know that the handwriting of many doctors tends to be illegible. Second, in our paper-driven health care system, a pharmacy has to reenter the doctor’s handwritten or faxed prescription information—and whenever information is reentered the potential for error increases.
Prescriptions that are transmitted electronically automatically appear in the pharmacy’s electronic system. There are no illegible prescriptions to decipher and no reentering to be done. This minimizes misunderstandings based on illegible handwriting and medications with similar sounding names. The system we all depend on for relieving and curing our health problems will be substantially safer. That is why The Rhode Island Quality Institute chose e-prescribing as its first initiative.
May 2006
Rhode Island Voted #1 in the Nation for Advancing E-Prescribing
We’re extremely proud that small and large pharmacies across the nation recognized our state’s efforts. Our vision is to electronically connect all retail pharmacies and all prescribers across this state. In 2003 we joined forces with SureScripts, Inc. of Alexandra, VA, to bring this vision into reality.
RI is the first state to electronically link physicians to the most pharmacies within its borders.
Founded by the National Community Pharmacists Association and the National Association of Chain Drug Stores to foster paperless prescribing, electronic links between doctors and pharmacists and medication safety, SureScripts represents more than 75 percent of U.S. pharmacies, including roughly half the nation's independents. The company also contracts with software vendors that supply more than 50,000 physicians. Kevin Hutchinson, SureScripts’ CEO, said the Quality Institute’s “unique collaboration makes Rhode Island a natural location to begin the nationwide rollout of our Sure-Scripts Messenger Services.” SureScripts’ Messenger Services allow the technology in physician offices to link directly to established pharmacy software.
The Road to Paperless Prescribing
Rhode Island served as SureScripts’ national beta test site for electronic prescribing and in August, 2003 we were ready to take our successful experience to a broader audience. Two of the Institute’s partners, Coastal Medical, Inc. and Lifespan Corporation were among the first medical organizations to begin wide-scale implementation of electronic prescribing among their physician offices. Coastal Medical participated in the beta testing of the system and then implemented it across their system of more than 65 physicians. Lifespan, also an early adopter, is in the process of bringing e-prescribing to their network of more than 800 physicians. With 88% of the state’s pharmacies now connected to the SureScripts’ system, any Rhode Island prescriber can choose a software vendor and begin electronic prescribing almost instantly. To find out which vendors are certified by Surescripts and get your practice connected, click on: http://www.surescripts.com/get-practice-connected.htm
A shift to paperless prescribing could translate to billions of dollars per year in health care savings nationwide due to reduced errors and duplication
Physicians in Rhode Island recognize that e-prescribing is a vastly improved system over traditional prescription writing. More physicians are eager to get involved; however, without compatible software systems, fitting the process into current workflow is difficult. Physicians participating in the Rhode Island Quality Institute are working to lower barriers to widespread adoption of e-prescribing. Initiatives like e-prescribing demonstrate that when physicians, pharmacists and other health care stakeholders work together to improve patient safety, we all benefit.
