The e-prescribing pilot will equip 100 physicians in Dayton and Warren/Youngstown with computer equipment and free use of an online tool that provides instant access to a patient’s current formulary information and medication history.
The pilot will provide real-time prescription support to physicians, including access to formularies, drug-drug and drug-allergy alerts, and a patient’s medication history, including medications prescribed by physicians outside of the practice.
The pilot program is expected to help reduce medical errors and improve patient safety by providing drug-specific information that helps eliminate confusion among drug names and improve communication between physicians and pharmacists.
In addition, the technology will allow physicians to send new prescriptions to the pharmacy of the patient’s choice, as well as process refill requests from those same pharmacies.
The e-prescribing project is a result of Anthem’s collaboration with General Motors (GM), the largest private purchaser of healthcare in the US. Although the pilot is not limited to GM employees, a significant number of GM employees, retirees and dependents live in the areas in which the pilot program is being conducted.
In addition to understanding the safety implications of e-prescribing, another objective of the pilot is to quantify the impact of e-prescribing on healthcare costs and efficiencies.
This program follows the announcement of the Anthem Care Comparison online cost transparency tool, which was introduced in Dayton late last year, and the healthcare provider hopes that the Ohio pilot may pave the way for a nationwide reduction in medical errors and improved patient safety.
Currently, less than 22% of physicians in the US use the basic capabilities of electronic prescribing, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The CMS estimates that the use of such technology could eliminate as many as two million harmful drug events each year.
