Tackling healthcare knowledge transformation one prescription at a time

Introduced in Might, Ottawa Hospital is the primary Canadian hospital to make use of PrescribeIT^® About 2,500 prescribers might be made obtainable via the hospital data system. A nationwide e-prescribing service that enables prescribers to ship prescriptions and updates electronically to a affected person’s most well-liked pharmacy, leading to safer, extra environment friendly affected person care, whereas bettering clinician workflow and communication with pharmacies can also be improved.

Jamie Bruce, Govt Vice President of PrescribeIT for Canada Well being Infoway, explains why this launch is a vital step in the direction of constructing a extra linked healthcare system.

Q. Why is the deployment of Ottawa Hospital so necessary in Canada’s well being knowledge reform efforts?

A. The Ottawa Hospital rollout marks a serious milestone for e-prescribing in Canada. Prescriptions are the primary level of contact for Canadians with the well being care system, with effectively over 250 million new and renewed prescriptions from prescribers to sufferers every year, a lot of that are paper. The paper and fax prescription course of presents inherent dangers to sufferers, each from the elevated threat of transcription errors and knowledge privateness, and likewise makes it tough to make sure continuity of care. PrescribeIT “fixes” and integrates the backend of methods already utilized by prescribers and native retail pharmacies to make sure true digital transmission of prescriptions.

The event of Ottawa Hospital is especially necessary as we glance to construct a extra linked healthcare system. Hospitals are the central part of care, however as soon as sufferers are discharged, continuity of care is handed over to main care suppliers and community-based pharmacists. Deploying PrescribeIT in hospital environments improves continuity of care by rising visibility for hospital prescribers, guaranteeing prescriptions attain the best pharmacy and sufferers obtain the best medicine. doing. On the identical time, main care suppliers can verify that new drugs have been allotted.

Q. How will digital prescriptions impression the every day work of hospitals, prescribers, and sufferers?

A. Finally, this deployment has been proven to assist sufferers obtain extra constant care and assist improved medicine adherence, which interprets into higher well being outcomes. Hostile drug occasions are a big contributor to emergency visits and prolonged hospital stays, impacting entry to remedy for all Canadians. There are lots of steps within the prescription course of that e-prescribing may also help cut back the frequency of those errors. By deploying PrescribeIT inside hospitals, hospital-based prescribers can have faith that their prescriptions will attain the proper pharmacy and be crammed. Till now, as soon as a paper prescription was delivered to a affected person, it was not doable to examine the standing of the affected person.

Hospital-filled prescriptions current a singular problem for pharmacists when questions or clarifications come up, as monitoring a hospital prescriber could be very completely different from contacting a neighborhood main care doctor. In these instances, built-in medical communication instruments permit pharmacists to speak instantly with prescribers, guaranteeing that drugs are allotted precisely with out vital delays.

Q. What are the challenges in implementing e-prescribing in a hospital surroundings, and the way have these challenges been mitigated with the Ottawa Hospital deployment?

A. Our precedence was to make sure that prescribers have been effectively skilled and had a change management construction in place. We have now labored intently with our hospital companions to make sure that this answer seamlessly provides to their workflow, is simple to make use of, and understands its performance to all prescribers. Then again, we additionally tried to make the pharmacies, who obtain prescriptions from hospitals, perceive the nuances of receiving prescriptions from hospitals.

Q. How will the adoption of PrescribeIT in hospitals assist the federal government’s broader objectives of healthcare reform?

A. Healthcare interoperability and knowledge transformation are key nationwide priorities, and PrescribeIT is a good instance of how knowledge can save lives. If you wish to apply good drugs, you want good knowledge, and you may’t get good knowledge with out highly effective digital instruments. PrescribeIT permits prescribers and pharmacists to immediately alternate extra detailed well being knowledge. He additionally has entry to one of the crucial necessary items of medical data: medicines. Should you’re seeking to digitize your methods and digitize your knowledge, tackling one of many largest data buckets reminiscent of prescription drugs is a good place to start out. With 14,000 prescribers and her 7,000 pharmacies enrolled within the service throughout Canada, Canada Well being Infoway is working intently with provinces and territories on further rollout plans. The Ottawa Hospital launch has been an unparalleled success and we’re very excited to develop to different hospitals.

Jamie Bruce, Govt Vice President, PrescribeIT