7th Annual Safe-Rx Awards

The Safe-Rx Awards celebrate leadership and exceptional commitment to advancing health care safety, efficiency and quality through the use of e-prescribing. On July 31, Surescripts will unveil the top 10 e-prescribing states. Massachusetts has held the #1 ranking for e-prescribing for the past 5 years.

7th Annual Safe-Rx Awards
July 31, 2012 at 12:00 noon ET

Register here.

E-Prescribing Shown to Improve Outcomes and Save Billions

More physicians are adopting e-prescribing because of the "meaningful use" requirements mandated by the HITECH Act. Some love it and others seem to really hate it. Eventually, we're all going to get accustomed to it and we'll look back on the stone-age days when prescriptions were written by hand. Here's some interesting news regarding the benefits of e-prescribing:

E-Prescribing Shown to Improve Outcomes and Save U.S. Healthcare System Billions of Dollars

ARLINGTON, VA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 02/01/12 -- Surescripts, the nation's e-prescription network, today announced study findings from de-identified data that link e-prescribing to a significant increase in first-fill medication adherence. Poor adherence to medication therapy is a large and costly problem in the U.S. The World Health Organization estimates that as many as 50 percent of patients do not adhere fully to their medication treatment(1), leading to 125,000 premature deaths and billions in preventable health care costs(2). The Surescripts analysis suggests that the increase in first-fill medication adherence combined with other e-prescribing benefits could, over the next 10 years, lead to between $140 billion and $240 billion in health care savings and improved health outcomes.

Surescripts is now an ONC-Authorized Testing and Certification Body

Surescripts operates the nation’s largest e-prescription network and supports a rapidly expanding ecosystem of health care organizations nationwide. They are now an ONC-Authorized Testing and Certification Body.

So, that brings the total number of authorized testing and certification bodies to 6 organizations/companies:

1. Surescripts LLC
2. ICSA Labs
3. SLI Global Solutions
4. InfoGard Laboratories, Inc.
5. Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT)
6. Drummond Group, Inc. (DGI)

Learn more here.

e-prescribing in Massachusetts

Boston has several different medical schools and affiliated hospitals. Can you name all of them? You have Harvard, Boston University, and Tufts (the UMass medical school is in Amherst). Is it any surprise that Massachusetts has been named the top e-prescribing state for the second year in a row by Surescripts? According to Surescripts, prescribers in Massachusetts sent more than 6.7 million prescriptions electronically in 2008, representing 20.5 percent of all eligible prescriptions in the state. That number is only going to increase because of ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act). Here's some more interesting info from Healthcare IT News:

Top 10 e-prescribing states

1. Massachusetts
2. Rhode Island
3. Michigan
4. Nevada
5. Delaware
6. North Carolina
7. Pennsylvania
8. Connecticut
9. Maine
10. Arizona

The top five most improved states:

1. Vermont
2. Tennessee
3. Kansas
4. Illinois
5. Missouri

Is your state on any of these lists? It's going to be very interesting to see all the changes that occur as President Obama channels money to improve the utilization of e-prescribing.