Electronic-prescribing, often referred to as e-prescribing, is a fairly new, innovative way for physicians and other medical personnel to prescribe medications and keep track of patients’ medical history. Not only has e-prescribing enabled prescribers to electronically send a prescription to the patients’ pharmacy of choice, in the short amount of time it has been available, it has significantly reduced health care costs, not only for the patient, but for the medical facilities as well. In 2003, e-prescribing was included in the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) which jumpstarted the role of e-prescribing in healthcare. It has proven to significantly reduce the yearly number medication errors and prescription fraud, and its widespread publicity has helped build awareness of e-prescribing’s role in enhancing patient safety. Although it has not been in practice for very long, e-prescribing has already made a positive impact in the field of health care. E-prescribing is defined as “a prescriber’s ability to electronically send an accurate, error-free and understandable prescription directly to a pharmacy from the point-of-care” (cms.gov). E-prescribing “represents an unprecedented opportunity to reduce healthcare costs and improve the safety and efficiency of a process relied upon by millions of patients every day” (surescripts.com). It gives the physician access to the patient’s prescription benefit information and prescription history, such as allergies, etc. The e-prescription is sent, electronically, from the doctor’s computer, through a secure closed network, directly to the patient’s pharmacy of choice. It will arrive at the pharmacy before the patient leaves their doctors’ office. There is no exchange of paper and the patient... ... middle of paper ... ...d has cut down the illegal distribution of prescription drugs. It cuts down on medical costs for the patient by allowing the physician to view what insurance coverage the patient carries for certain medications and. providing lists of similar generic drugs. E-prescribing is just one part of U.S. government’s goal to gradually adopting standards facilitating the shift to all electronic medical records for citizens. Although it has only been available for a short time, electronic-prescribing has already made an impressively large impact on the medical field. References http://www.ama-assn.org/resources/doc/hit/clinicians-guide-erx.PDF https://www.cms.gov/EPrescribing/ http://www.popcenter.org/problems/prescription_fraud/ http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/excellus_blue_cross_blue_shiel.html http://www.wgrz.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=79194
During the 1980’s and 90’s there were many studies done that showed that medical errors were occurring in inpatient and outpatient settings at a very high rate. Computer Provider Order Entry (CPOE) systems were designed to reduce or eliminate mistakes made by using hand written orders. The CPOE system allows users to directly enter their orders into the system on computers which are then sent directly to the healthcare providers that will be implementing the orders. Previously orders were placed by writing on order sheets on patient charts. This was sometimes done by the doctor or by a nurse acting on behalf of the doctor. Order sheets were then signed by the doctor and then the information was input into the patient’s record. This left room for error due to misreading bad handwriting, confusing medications with similar names, etc.
Springfield General Hospital (SGH) is committed to high quality healthcare for patients, and providing tools to support physicians, nurses and pharmacists. SGH leadership approved the computerized physician order entry (CPOE) system as a solution to reduce prescription errors, and the results of the CPOE project are disappointing. The data show increased prescribing errors after implementing the CPOE; resulting in increased costs for adverse drug events, rather than the planned cost reduction (Spector, 2013). This change management plan provides the SGH board of directors and executive management team pragmatic steps to increase quality for patients by assessing the root issue of hospital
...vacy screen on the computer and/or turning the computer away so customers cannot see what’s on the screen, and use a secure network to receive new prescriptions or request refills. A patient must be notified and give authorization to allow a list of their drugs be given to a marketing company. The authorization must say what the data disclosure and use is being planned for and the date when the authorization will expire. In a community practice a pharmacist cannot discuss treatment with anyone unless patient signs authorization. In an institutional practice the patient can call the pharmacist and give permission to talk to a doctor if able to speak. In case of an emergency, such as a heart attack or car accident, the doctor can call the pharmacist to get the information without patient consent. A patient must give a written authorization in a community pharmacy.
Some method such as audits, chart reviews, computer monitoring, incident report, bar codes and direct patient observation can improve and decrease medication errors. Regular audits can help patient’s care and reeducate nurses in the work field to new practices. Also reporting of medication errors can help with data comparison and is a learning experience for everyone. Other avenues that has been implemented are computerized physician order entry systems or electronic prescribing (a process of electronic entry of a doctor’s instructions for the treatment of patients under his/her care which communicates these orders over a computer network to other staff or departments) responsible for fulfilling the order, and ward pharmacists can be more diligence on the prescription stage of the medication pathway. A random survey was done in hospital pharmacies on medication error documentation and actions taken against pharmacists involved. A total of 500 hospital were selected in the United States. Data collected on the number of medication error reported, what types of errors were documented and the hospital demographics. The response rate was a total of 28%. Practically, all of the hospitals had policies and procedures in place for reporting medication errors.
Lucian L. Leape Conducted a study in 1995 on “health policy analyst at the Harvard School of Public Health, found that 6.5 percent of patients at two teaching hospitals in Boston had been injured by their medicines, and one-third of these cases involved mistakes” (Stolberg, 1999). Due to this Study the F.D.A. official were convinced that the danger of prescription cascade is growing which prompted them to release a 150-page report which was made public, that called for pharmacists, doctors, hospitals and drug companies to work together to create ' 'a new framework ' ' for cutting down on overlapping prescription that have a high risk of causing a cascade. Explicit warning pamphlets were also created according to the new guidelines which requires manufacturers to release side effect possibilities in high risk drugs. (Stolberg, 1999)
Properly implemented and medication-use technology has the potential to moderate these costs. Bar-code-assisted medication administration (BCMA) has been shown to reduce medication administration errors by as much as 54-86%. BCMA, along with computerized electronic prescriber order entry and an electronic medication administration record, closes a technological loop that extends from the transmission of the order to the administration of the medication at bedside (Strykowski, Hadsall, Sawchyn, VanSickle, Niznick,
Advances in technology have influences our society at home, work and in our health care. It all started with online banking, atm cards, and availability of children’s grades online, and buying tickets for social outings. There was nothing electronic about going the doctor’s office. Health care cost has been rising and medical errors resulting in loss of life cried for change. As technologies advanced, the process to reduce medical errors and protect important health care information was evolving. In January 2004, President Bush announced in the State of the Union address the plan to launch an electronic health record (EHR) within the next ten years (American Healthtech, 2012).
Will the veterans at the VA Outpatient clinic have fewer medication errors in the implementation of a barcode administration system compared to those not using barcode the medication system, result in decreased medication error rate over a period of a year. This is the question that will be presented for this this research proposal. Medication errors occur daily and are steadily on a rise. According to Seibert (2014), adverse drug events has risen to 450, 000 annually from medication errors that resulted in injury, of which approximately 25% are preventable. A common medication errors include “prescribing errors, wrong drug, wrong dosage, incorrect calculation, not confirming allergies, and failure to adjust medication dose due to disease
medications is more than the act of getting drugs to a patient. The delivery of medication is directly tied to the charge for the medication. Thus the responsibility for charging or crediting medication belongs to technicians. This aspect of their job is strictly governed by federal regulations. These laws hold the technician directly responsible for the accuracy of a patient’s account’s charge and credit transactions. Because every dose is related to a specific day and time, when technicians credit they must apply that change to the corresponding dose. Assignificant as accuracy is to the patient’s account, accuracy in the making of their medications is even more important.
Some Pharmacy Admission Specialist (PAS) have difficulty thinking through what must be done when problems are presented in different contexts. Not only must the PAS interview the patient, verify the information and update the EHR, but the PAS must also determine where to find the information, how much time to devote to finding any single piece of verification, how to input the medication so that it is accurate and clear to the provider and pharmacist, and when to mark the list as "ready for provider" or leave it to be finished the next day with clear indication of what has already been completed. The standard work and practice is continually evolving to meet the demands of patient safety. This complex problem requires critical thinking skills with the ability to use the knowledge acquired in each scenario.
Over the last several years, electronic medical records are becoming more prominent in health care facilities, replacing traditional written records. As many electronics are becoming more prevalent with the invention of numerous smartphones and tablet devices, it seems that making medical records available electronically would be appropriate for the evolving times. Even though they have been in use to some extent for many years, the “Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health section of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has brought paperless documentation into the spotlight” (Eisenberg, 2010, p. 8). The systems of electronic medical records mainly consist of clinical note taking, prescription and medication documentation,
There are obvious benefits to the technology such as quick access to patient information, efficient and faster billing, and lower storage costs. In addition, there are huge advantages to linking laboratory, radiology, and pharmacy information to the larger EHR. According to Murphy (2011), linking this data is very patient-centric as it lessens the likelihood of repeating tests, thus better care decisions happen when current data is available. However, there are cons to the technology that are hampering its full acceptance. In the digital age, the public is becoming aware of how pervasive computers are to our everyday lives. Computers run our cars; manage our financial matters, and numerous other daily functions. In addition, computers and electronic information allow medical devices to function and more often than not, track our medical footprints. When the shift to EHR was nearly mandated, the one consideration not taken into account is the public’s mistrust of how the healthcare industry uses this information. Certainly, those in the healthcare industry want to keep their patients healthy, heal them when illness develops, and develop better ways of treating disease; however, the medical industry, like all businesses, are motivated by profit. According to Blankenhorn (2010), medical records, from pharmacy records
EHRs are “a real-time, patient-centered” records that make health information available promptly and bring any patients’ health information together in one place such as medical history, medications, diagnosis, laboratory test results, immunization records, allergies and even medical images, and many others. The use of electronic health records (EHRs) continuously increases. An ability to collect secure patient data electronically, and supplies the information to the providers upon a request is one of the features in EHR. The system can also bring together information from more than one health care organization and any past and current clinical services of the patient that helps the health care professionals in providing quality services. Within this scope, EHR benefits health care providers to enter orders directly into a computerized provider order entry (CPOE) system, provides tools in decision making like, alerts, reminders, and provides access to the new research findings and evidence-based guidelines (Wager, Lee, & Glaser, 2013, pp. 134-37). The United States is creating large investments to boost the adoption and use of interoperable electronic health records (EHRs)
Will, L. ed., 2010. Technology and the Future of Pharmacy: A Roundtable Discussion. Computer Talk for the Pharmacist, [online] 30(3), 20-36. Available at: [Accessed on 11 November 2011]
• As more hospital pharmacies move in the direction of computer access, the profession must identify more clinical applications for computer programming. The use of computers has demonstrated the potential to decrease adverse events, preserve financial and medical resources, and improve patient management.