Health IT Quality

Back today from a few days off last week.  During the week, we encountered a quality issue that had some pretty serious implications.  A particular vendor was allowing users to hit the Enter key in the middle of a long drug name.  That Enter character (hex 0a for you tekkies) was being transmitted in the middle of the long drug name field.  The problem is, that character is not permitted in the NCPDP standard.  Some systems are programmed to reject a a message based on seeing that character in that field, and others just pass it on.  Then the final receiving system was not expecting to get that character.  The pharmacy system in question did not handle it gracefully.  It has been fixed, but here is my question:

If NCPDP does not permit a certain character to be transmitted in a particular field, do you think the job of Surescripts is to inspect the field and take action if a violation is found?  Or just pass the message as it was sent to us?

Post a comment with your opinion on this question.

We've now had a chance to review and comment on the Proposed Final Rule for E-Prescribing Controlled Substances.  Of course my interest is to think about how quality is impacted and relates to the rule and the practice of e-prescribing controlled substances.

At a high level, there is a dimension that goes well beyond what we see the role of Surescripts to be versus the role of the DEA and law enforcement.

However, Surescripts does have a unique role and view in the network, so we think we have the ability to establish some quality goals, and to measure and monitor the attainment of those quality measures.

Please post a comment if you would like to comment on the role of Surescripts to measure quality as it relates to controlled substances.  What do you think quality means as it relates to the e-prescribing of controlled substances?

If you want an interesting conversation, ask someone what they think quality is. If you don't want to talk about e-prescribing, talk about cars, computers, cable TV, restaurants, or anything else.

I find the results fascinating. It helps me think about our quality program.

Please post a comment if you have an interesting answer to the question:

So, what do you think quality is?

A recent article published by researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College indicates that e-prescribing reduced prescribing errors by a factor of seven.

We are reviewing this article to understand the methodology and categorization decisions that they made.

Do you have any comments on this article or other related research regarding the accuracy of e-prescribing compared to other methods of delivery? If so, please add a comment to this posting with the link below.