Rhode Island Announces 100 Percent of Pharmacies Are Now E-Prescribing and Launches First Statewide System for Tracking Disease Using Prescription Data from Pharmacies
Monday, October 26, 2009
RHODE ISLAND'S SUCCESS WITH E-PRESCRIBING LEADS TO
FIRST-OF-A-KIND SYSTEM FOR TRACKING SWINE FLU
On A Day of Health Care Firsts, State Announces 100 Percent
of Pharmacies Are Now E-Prescribing and Launches First Statewide
System for Tracking Disease Using Prescription Data from
Pharmacies
Warwick, RI - October 26, 2009 - At a press
conference featuring healthcare leaders from throughout the state,
Governor Donald L. Carcieri announced that Rhode Island was
launching a new system for tracking swine flu.
Unprecedented in its approach, the system makes use of prescribing
data provided by pharmacies throughout the state via a secure
electronic link. It is enabled by the state's success with
e-prescribing and the digital healthcare infrastructure
available through its partnership with Surescripts, The Nation's
E-Prescription Network.
"Since 2003 Rhode Island has consistently led the way on
e-prescribing, and we have been continually recognized as one of
the top 10 states in the nation for our success in implementing
this initiative," said Governor Carcieri. "I am proud of all that
we have been able to accomplish through a very effective
public-private partnership."
"E-prescribing has been a priority of my administration because of
its potential to improve patient safety, increase quality of care,
and reduce healthcare costs. It has tremendous value for monitoring
and protecting public health, and for increasing efficiencies in
our health care system," Governor Carcieri continued.
"The growth of e-prescribing has been an important component of our
overall effort to promote the electronic exchange of health
information."
The First Statewide System for Tracking Disease Using
Prescription Data
In a healthcare first for Rhode Island and the nation, Surescripts
and the state's pharmacies are now providing epidemiologists at the
Rhode Island Department of Health with weekly updates of
prescription data from pharmacies throughout the state.
Participating pharmacies include CVS/pharmacy, Rite Aid, Stop &
Shop and Walgreens. The epidemiologists can use the data - which
has been de-identified to exclude personal information - to see
where there may be spikes in prescriptions of TAMIFLU or other
antiviral medications.
"Rhode Island is the first state in the nation to work with
Surescripts to use prescription data in the aggregate for disease
surveillance, specifically monitoring and tracking the use of
antiviral data during this H1N1 pandemic," said Director of Health
David R. Gifford, MD MPH. "This provides another important tool for
the state's public health officials to look at trends related to
the course, severity and treatment of the H1N1 pandemic."
The new capability allows state health officials to do three
things:
• Use the data as a valuable proxy for detecting a potential
outbreak of swine flu, including its location and affected age
group.
• Offer a more far-reaching and granular view of potential flu
activity when compared to the state's "Sentinel" system -- 25
physician practices around the state which report flu outbreaks to
the state DOH.
• Help detect discrepancies between disease outbreaks reported by
the Sentinel system and outbreaks identified based on flu
prescriptions. These discrepancies may suggest a number of
possibilities: prescribing in the absence of flu; that supplies of
an important drug are running low; additional outbreak areas that
were not detected by the Sentinel system; the need for additional
education to assure the appropriate use of antiviral medications.
Rhode Island's electronic tracking of antiviral data represents the
second prominent use of prescription data for reasons of public
health. In 2005, an effort formed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina
allowed physicians and pharmacists throughout the country who were
caring for displaced residents of New Orleans and surrounding
regions to go to KatrinaHealth.org to access the prescription
history of an evacuee for whom they were providing care, but had no
medical records. Katrina Health and its successor effort -
ICERx.org - were forerunners to the Rhode Island system launched
today.
First State to Reach 100 Percent of Pharmacies
E-Prescribing
Rhode Island's new system for tracking swine flu is built upon its
success in driving the adoption and use of e-prescribing. In yet
another first for the state and the nation, Rhode Island today
announced that it has now connected 100 percent of its retail
pharmacies for e-prescribing. By connecting all of the state's
pharmacies to the Surescripts network, Rhode Island is not only
further supporting the growth of e-prescribing and improvements in
the cost, quality and safety of prescriptions processed in the
state, it is creating new opportunities for meaningful use of the
state's rapidly expanding digital healthcare infrastructure.
"This is a very significant milestone in our efforts to leverage
health information technology to improve the quality, safety and
value of health care in Rhode Island," said Laura Adams, President
and CEO of the Rhode Island Quality Institute
(RIQI). "When a misplaced decimal point can cost a life, the value
of eliminating hand-transcribed prescriptions cannot be
overstated."
Pharmacists are realizing significant benefits from e-prescribing.
Dave Feeney, R.Ph., owner of Oxnard Pharmacy in Warwick turned to
e-prescribing as a way to create more efficiencies and economies
for his pharmacy.
"E-prescribing allows you more time with patients, improves
prescriber relationships and improves patient relationships," said
Feeney. "For example, we have a lot of diabetes patients that we
are now able to spend more pharmacist-patient time with to counsel
them on diabetes education. Also, patients no longer have to wait
for their prescriptions when they arrive at the pharmacy and they
have to make fewer return trips to the pharmacy for refill
requests."
"All CVS/pharmacy stores have been enabled to receive electronic
prescriptions since 2004 and we are delighted that our home state
is the first in the nation to achieve this 100% milestone," said
Papatya Tankut, R.Ph, Vice President of
Pharmacy Professional Services at CVS/pharmacy. "E-prescribing is a
more efficient way for physicians to provide prescription
information to pharmacies. It provides physicians with more
information about their patients' prescription profile at
point-of-care, eliminates legibility issues which enhances safety
at the pharmacy, and provides greater convenience for patients.
Tracking prescription patterns to help identify H1N1 flu outbreaks
is just one more reason CVS will continue to support efforts to
increase the adoption of e-prescribing technology in our health
care system."
"Stop & Shop applauds the achievements in Rhode Island and
strongly supports e-prescribing technology," said Jim Wonderly,
Vice President of Pharmacy. "We're focused on doing all we can to
monitor and control the H1N1 flu outbreak including distributing
free Tamiflu to qualified customers as part of a Rhode Island state
program. We are on board to do all we can to improve efficiencies
for our customers, physicians and pharmacists,"
Physicians also benefit from e-prescribing, according to David
Gorelick, an internist with Aquidneck Medical Associates in
Newport.
"I see approximately 500 patients per month. I prescribe and manage
thousands of medications for my patients," said David Gorelick, an
internist with Aquidneck Medical Associates in Newport. "Refilling
medications with paper records
could take up to 10 minutes by the time the chart was located and
brought to my desk for review. With e-prescribing, refills can be
done in seconds. This is a huge time savings for my practice that
allows us to focus more of our attention on direct patient care.
E-prescribing also greatly improves patient safety as I now have a
computer system to check prescriptions against the patient's
allergies and potential interactions between all of their current
medications and over-the-counter products."
Rhode Island Establishes Model for Digital
Healthcare
The engine behind all of this success in converting from paper to
digital healthcare in Rhode Island has been a collaborative effort
of involving healthcare leaders from across the state. It began
with The Rhode Island Quality Institute
(RIQI), founded by U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in 2001. A few
years later, The RIQI Statewide e-Prescribing Committee was
created. Chaired by Dr. Gifford, the e-Prescribing Committee
includes lead officials from the state department of health, the
state's major health system, the state's pharmacies and other key
players.
"Rhode Island's unique collaborative model is leveraging the power
of the Surescripts network to produce meaningful improvements
across the state's healthcare system," said Harry Totonis,
president and CEO of Surescripts. "Instead of theorizing about how
to drive health IT adoption, the Rhode Island e-Prescribing
Committee pulls out spread sheets, analyzes real data, sets goals,
identifies barriers to health IT adoption and use and acts swiftly
to remove them. You need
only attend one of their conference calls to understand why Rhode
Island is in the leadership position it's in."
Through the end of September 2009, Rhode Island had achieved the
following level of e-prescribing adoption and use:
• Retail Pharmacies Connected For E-Prescription Routing =
100%
• Prescribers Using E-Prescriptions = 63%
• Prescribers using an Electronic Health Record for E-Prescribing =
56%
• Prescriptions Routed Electronically = 31%
Rhode Island Acts to Eliminate Barriers to
E-Prescribing
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is part of a bipartisan group of U.S.
Senators working to change the federal rule that currently prevents
doctors from e-prescribing controlled substances. Current federal
rules require that doctors write paper
prescriptions for controlled pharmaceuticals, such as pain
medications, antidepressants and some drugs used to treat asthma in
children. A change in this rule would provide greater incentive for
providers to participate in e-prescribing by eliminating the need
for maintaining a separate paper-based prescribing system for
controlled substances.
"Today's announcement is another impressive milestone in a long
line of health care innovations in Rhode Island," said Whitehouse.
"Electronic prescribing is a necessity for improved quality and
safety in health care delivery, and I'm thankful
for all the hard work put in by the Rhode Island Quality Institute
and participating pharmacies to adopt this technology. The next
step in this effort is for the DEA to issue final regulations
allowing providers to prescribe controlled drugs electronically,
and I will continue working in the Senate to make that goal a
reality."
About the Rhode Island Quality Institute
(RIQI)
The Rhode Island Quality Institute (RIQI) is a statewide
collaboration of hospitals, physicians, nurses, health insurers,
consumers, business, government and academia working together to
significantly improve health care in Rhode Island.
Founded in 2001, the RIQI's strategic focus includes building a
statewide health care information exchange and interoperability and
ensuring the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) as a
foundation for continual improvement in the quality of care. The
RIQI is leveraging RI's unique characteristics (small size, line of
sight trust, and governmental accessibility) to demonstrate how the
health care system can be improved through collaborative
innovation. For more
information, visit www.riqi.org.
Press Contact:
Kevin Gould
401-487-2152
kgould@advocacysolutionsllc.com
About The Rhode Island Department of Health
The primary mission of the Rhode Island Department of Health is to
prevent disease and to protect and promote the health and safety of
the people of Rhode Island. The Department of Health is a diverse
and interactive state agency with
broad-ranging public health responsibilities including communicable
disease control, vital records, environmental health minority
health, chronic disease prevention, health promotion, injury
control, public informational and many others.
http://www.health.ri.gov/
Press Contact:
Annemarie Beardsworth
401-222-3998
Annemarie.Beardsworth@health.ri.gov
About SureScripts
Founded by the pharmacy industry in 2001, SureScripts ® operates
the Pharmacy Health Information Exchange ™, which facilitates the
secure electronic transmission of prescription information between
physicians and pharmacists and provides access to lifesaving
information about patients during emergencies or routine care.
Today, more than 95 percent of all pharmacies and all major
physician technology vendors in the United States are certified on
the Pharmacy Health Information Exchange. More information about
SureScripts is available at www.surescripts.com.
