|
Temple Physicians Use Pocket
Computers to Prescribe Medications
(November 26, 2001) Prescribing medication in the 21st
century has become a complex undertaking. Physicians must make informed
decisions on a rapidly changing pharmacopea, including disease treatment
options, drug dosing regimens, drug-drug interactions, and drug cost.
"No physician has all the necessary data to make rational
prescribing decisions," emphasizes Eric Mankin, M.D., Medical
Director of Temple Physicians, Inc. The escalation in the frequency of
medication errors leading to patient injury and death, along with the
associated increase in patient care costs, demonstrates the
vulnerabilities of the current system. "The healthcare industry is
the only remaining major industry that handles information-based
transactions by hand," says Harvey Nassau, D.O., Vice President of
Temple’s Medical Management program. "This just doesn’t make
sense in 2001."
Temple has made a commitment to improve the physician prescribing
process through the use of computerized monitoring systems.
"Physician education alone is not enough to reduce medication
errors and costs, " says Dr. Mankin. "We expect that
electronic prescribing devices and the accompanying software, by
providing medication information at the physician’s fingertips, will
increase patient safety and decrease patient drug costs."
Temple's Electronic Prescribing System
In the recently-implemented program, 130 community and
university-based physicians have begun using the wireless, hand-held
iPaq Pocket PC from Compaq. Each iPaq is preloaded with information that
enables the physician to prescribe based on illness, patient history,
drug characteristics—including drug-drug interactions and side effects—and
drug cost. The prescribing software is provided by Allscripts Healthcare
Solutions and is linked to patient billing and registration software in
the physician’s office.
The software presents treatment options for common diagnoses and
medication alternatives. Most importantly, the device is a
"portable Physicians’ Desk Reference" with data on several
hundred drugs. Also provided are the relative costs of different drugs
in the same diagnostic or therapeutic category, the availability of
generic alternatives, and the formulary rules of every patient’s
health plan, enabling the physician to reduce unnecessary medication
expense and prescribe medications that will be paid for by the patient’s
insurance company.
To prescribe for a patient, the physician searches the iPaq PC
database by patient name, diagnosis and drug. A prescription then is
either printed out or faxed electronically to the patient’s pharmacy
of choice.
The benefits for the patient are obvious. Patient safety and
convenience are increased because the drug information and patient
history are available to the physician who is making the prescribing
decisions. "We are leading the way in decreasing medication errors,
improving the opportunity for physicians to adjust prescribing habits
based on objective cost and formulary data," says Mankin.
|
