Hospitals Now Online with ePrescribing
Memorial and Elkhart General hospitals will be rolling out a relatively new service for patients — sending patients’ discharge prescriptions electronically to their pharmacy of choice. During admission, nursing staff will capture each patient’s preferred pharmacy. Then, when providers enter the patient’s prescriptions for going home after discharge, the prescriptions are sent electronically to their pharmacy for pick-up.
While this is new technology for both hospitals, many Beacon Medical Group practices have used electronic prescribing since 2006.
“The BMG clinics that are using Cerner are also using ePrescribe and find it very helpful. Patients love not having to keep track of their paper prescriptions and it is actually faster for providers,” says Scott Eshowsky, M.D., Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO) for Beacon Medical Group.
Memorial CMIO Kenneth Elek, M.D., and Elkhart General CMIO D. Thomas Mellin, M.D., also shared that hospitalists in both facilities have been piloting this service successfully for some time.
“What we are doing now is promoting it to all providers in the hospitals, not only to benefit the patient, but to also ensure both facilities successfully achieve Meaningful Use Stage 2 in 2015. It’s a win-win for everyone,” says Dr. Elek.
Unfortunately, not all prescriptions can be electronically transmitted at this time.
“Controlled substances cannot be ePrescribed just yet; however, the technology to do so exists and will likely be a future addition to our Cerner functionality,” explains Dr. Mellin. “Until then, providers can ePrescribe most meds and then just print and sign the controlled substances scripts and hand those to the patient. It is not ideal, but it is a great step in the right direction and is sure to be a satisfier to providers and patients alike.”
Watch for helpful Know As You Go (KAYG) information to learn more about how ePrescribe works in your area, or contact any of the clinical informatics team members at clinicalinformatics@beaconhealthsystem.org.
