HHS Awards Contracts For E-prescribing Pilot
Among other participants, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Boston, Brown University, and a number of nursing facilities in Minnesota will test e-prescribing software from several vendors (SureScripts, Allscripts, DrFirst, Gold Standard, Medplus/Quest Diagnostics, ZixCorp.) under a $6M pilot project awarded by the Health and Human Services Department (HHS). The project will run during this calendar year and also involve Rand Corporation and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Doctors will get formulary information and medication history from these systems using a standardized taxonomy for drugs and their ingredients (known as RxNorm), while patients will be provided instructions on how to take the prescribed medications (”Sig” information) with pharmacies in the loop along the way. The goal of this pilot is to “measure the impact of electronic prescribing data transmission systems on patient safety and quality of care” by hopefully reducing the number of adverse drug events and inapproriate drug use. Standards emerging from it may become part of the new Medicare Part D prescription drug program.
The project will be administered jointly by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Washington Technology has additional details, see also these press releases by HHS, Rand and SureScripts.
January 23, 2006 Related topics: Contract Awards, Pharmaceuticals, IT & software