DrFirst: "So You Want to Have a Successful Electronic Prescribing Initiative...".

Program Analysis of a Two Year E-Prescribing Pilot That Has Blossomed into a Statewide Initiative to Increase Patient Safety

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Creating an environment for behavioral and process changes in healthcare may be one of the most difficult challenges facing health organizations today. Since early 2005, working in tight collaboration with e-prescribing vendor, DrFirst, Health Alliance Plan and Henry Ford Medical Group have implemented a successful solution that not only alleviates bad handwriting, creates workflow efficiencies, increases formulary/eligibility compliance, and provides accurate medication history, but also promotes patient safety through drug/drug and drug/allergy clinical alerts. What began as a modest pilot project with 60 physicians has quickly become a Henry Ford Health System-wide initiative, successfully engaging more than 600 physicians. Recently, Henry Ford Medical Group reached the milestone of their one-millionth electronic prescription sent through Rcopia.

In the October 2006 issue of Health Management Technology the article, "And the Winner isC*Everyone", written by editor Robin Blair; Matthew Walsh, Associate Vice President of Purchaser Initiatives of Health Alliance Plan, gives HAP's perspective on how organizations can best leverage technology to roll out quality initiatives, while helping to drive new behavior. Also in the article, G. Cameron Deemer, senior vice president and general manager of DrFirst, Inc., advises that a data-driven approach, including business analysis and reporting tools, can help an organization measure the success of their initiatives and boost behavioral changes and organizational performance. The partnership and collaborative effort shows that through workflow redesign achieved through clinical technology solutions and business intelligence, quality improvement and significant financial savings become by-products of daily operations.

Read the article online at http://www.healthmgttech.com/archives/1006/1006winner_is.htm or contact DrFirst for a hard copy of the article at [e-mail]. The story can also be found on page 46 of the October issue of Health Management Technology magazine. Copies of this article will be distributed at the 2006 Distinctively Blue: Collaborating to Achieve Conference at Booth #513 on October 8-10 in Chicago, as well as copies of the issue at the 2006 Annual MGMA Conference on October 22-25 in Las Vegas.