e-Prescribing Targets Set for January
The e-Prescribing capability in the LMR significantly improves the quality of care delivered to patients and enhances patient safety. Since its creation, e-Prescribing has undergone continuous improvement to enable greater ease of use and functionality.
“The function prompts information about patient allergies, drug interactions and dosage adjustments,” said Louise Schneider, MD, BWPO associate medical director. “It is an important quality and safety driver.”
Pay-for-performance targets support physicians’ ability to deliver the best care to patients. The hospital must meet pay-for-performance targets for e-Prescribing by Jan. 1, 2010. Primary care practices are meeting their targets, but some specialty practices have a ways to go to do so.
Over the next six months, the LMR training team will work with practices to improve the percentage of prescriptions electronically generated by identifying workflow issues. They will also increase use of medication favorites, which creates a pre-populated list so physicians do not have to create it from scratch. This will help increase the percentage of e-prescriptions.
“As patients move through the system and see multiple providers, using the LMR for e-Prescribing and documenting what medications the patient is taking improves quality of care,” said Schneider. “All physicians have the same shared knowledge.”
The electronic health record and e-Prescribing will be front and center of the criteria for health information technology coming out of the federal government’s stimulus bill, Schneider said. “It’s also important for us to meet targets in order to meet Joint Commission regulations for medication reconciliation.”