e-Prescribing resources

England is further ahead in the implementation of electronic prescribing - and they are sharing their learnings!

They commissioned a study involving 150 community pharmacies - observations and interviews were done on-site.

They have produced a briefing to share their results called:
Pharmacy EPS costs and benefits study: key points for community pharmacy contractors

Many of their observations and questions asked are pertinent to the Canadian landscape.
Some of the top tips:
1. Have a lead pharmacist champion
2. Ensure sufficient training on the new EPS system and the PMR (Patient medication record) - aka Pharmacy Management System.
3. Map your processes - link with Primary Care Prescribers in your area to predict uptake, # of Rxs
4. Mitigate risk - have backup plans for techological failures. Update standard operating procedures

Plus much more.
The link above provide access to a summary document - but the full reports are found within that document.

Lisa
ISMP Canada

Congratulations, Ontario! I still have a question

Who is the mysterious vendor of the pharmacy? Is there a sandbox available? Where is the hosting solution? How can the vendor company contact PrescribeIT solution to develop/test the interface?

Kind regards,
Iryna

Hi Everyone,

I'm pleased to share that PrescibeIT, Canada’s national e-prescription service, is operational in Ontario.

Find more information here: Huntsville the Site of PrescribeIT’s First e-Prescription

Also, check out the new PrescribeIT website for more information on e-prescribing in Canada.

Kind regards,
Seema

This is a good article for colleagues working behind the scenes to examine the electronic mapping and the challenges associated with tying indications to e-prescribing.

Enabling this functionality could ultimately lead to better clinical decision supports and thus increased patient safety.

Lisa

Great article pOH! Thanks for sharing.

Definitely shares how integrating technology can reduce a number of errors when sharing and evaluating medication lists across the continuum of care.
And, yet again, how it illustrated technology induced new errors - in this case, prescribing errors. I wonder if their module utilized indications to validate appropriate medication choices (as we all know how easy it is to pick the wrong drug from a pick list!)

The other concern I have about ensuring discharge medication is complete, is with respect to how hospitals handle home medication usage.
The processes are inconsistent.

If not prescribing a home medication for administration in hospital:
some don't acknowledge it
some just discontinue because it is not critical to the acute situation
some put the home meds on hold
some discontinue all orders for hold - because it is hospital policy to not have hold orders
some autosub (and make no mention of what they have at home).

If the home medication list is not in the system, home medication clarifications get missed - leading to ++ confusion for patients and caregivers.

The best system I have worked with was when a medication was categorized as a home medication. If they were holding or discontinuing the medication, there was a prompt for a reason why. This hospital allowed hold orders, and had a process to reassess after a defined number of days as well as at any unit transitions (i.e. from ICU to ward, from ward to REHAB).

What does your hospital do to ensure home medications are reconciled at discharge, to ensure medications changes are clearly communicated at discharge.

Lisa Sever, ISMP Canada

Bonjour everyone,

As a hospital pharmacist with a geek tendancy, it's great to read articles and studies that show improvement in medication safety while using e-prescribing.

It's my turn to show you a brand new article form the UK where we see that electronic prescribing system and Hospital Electronic Prescribing and Medicines Administration (HEPMA) "was associated with improved discharge documentation quality, statistically significant prescribing error reduction and prescribing error type alteration. There remains a need to be alert for potential prescribing errors."

Link : Eur J Clin Pharmaco

Ohter topic : Is using e-prescribing reduces lenght of stay?