DrFirst to deliver prescription details from all pharmacies state-wide to Nebraska’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program ROCKVILLE, Md.—DrFirst, the market leader in ePrescribing and medication management solutions, announced that it was selected by the Nebraska Health Information Initiative (NeHII) and the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services to capture state prescription information and deliver it […]
Education
Mind the Gap…in Medication Management
For decades, passengers on the London Underground (“the Tube”) were warned to “mind the gap” by the omnipresent, automated male voice, cautioning them to avoid stepping into the significant – yet somehow often unseen – space between the edge of the platform and the subway train. Yet accidents still happened, and rider safety was threatened. […]
E-prescribing’s Next Steps: Controlled Substances
Electronic prescribing is now widely used by providers, but it has not yet fulfilled its potential. Controlled substances can be legally e-prescribed in all 50 states, but use of e-prescribing for controlled substances (EPCS) is not mandatory in 47 states, limiting its benefits at a time when abuse of prescription drugs such as opioids is […]
Opioid Abuse: If EPCS Is The Answer, Why Hasn’t It Worked?
By Peter N. Kaufman, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, DrFirst With an ever-increasing focus on addressing the opioid epidemic from key stakeholders — law enforcement, legislators, and healthcare providers — one would expect to see improvement. Yet opioid misuse and abuse continues unabated. Healthcare providers and healthcare IT vendors thought they had discovered the cure to […]
Why docs were slow to embrace secure prescribing controls
When Oswego Health in New York implemented state-mandated secure electronic prescribing software for controlled substances, physicians initially did not like the fact that they were forced to use the technology, but it did not take them long to embrace it, says Barry Ryle, CIO. Before the mandate, Oswego had a hybrid prescribing system, with electronic […]
7 ways e-prescribing is addressing prescription drug abuse and enhancing patient care
Article by Dr. Peter Kaufman, Chief Medical Officer for DrFirst In December 2016, President Obama signed the 21st Century Cures Act, which included $1 billion in new funding to fight the opioid epidemic. The Cures Act allocation is the latest government effort to address the country’s pressing issue of opioid misuse, which, according to the […]
Opioid Epidemic Must Also Be a Call to Arms for Healthcare IT
Opioid epidemic must also be a call to arms for healthcare IT In a rare open letter to the nation’s doctors, U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy sounded a rallying cry to engage their greater participation in the opioid-abuse crisis afflicting our country. Missing from the Murthy’s commendable call to arms, though, was mention of the […]
The Evolving EPCS Landscape 2016: A Prescription for Stopping Opioid Abuse
Enabling physicians to electronically prescribe controlled substances (EPCS) may help curb the widespread abuse of opioids by increasing prescription security, improving patient safety and reducing the practice of “doctor shopping” to fill unnecessary prescriptions. However, while the vast majority of our nation’s retail pharmacies (82 percent) are EPCS enabled, fewer than six percent of all […]
Which one is more important…PDMP versus EPCS?
This is the fourth installment of a five blog series on Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) and the Electronic Prescribing of Controlled Substances (EPCS). As the title suggests, one might ask which program is more important. Of course, as the reader may suspect, the answer depends on the perspective of each individual user. PDMP Importance […]
The Controlled Substance Epidemic and Crisis
Here we are toward the end of the summer of 2013, and not a day goes by that we don’t view or hear of some story in the local or national media that chronicles the usually tragic consequences of the widespread fraud, abuse, and diversion of controlled substances. Unlike in the past when we thought […]