Tampa Bay Area Health Care Leaders Partner with National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative to Deliver Free Electronic Prescribing to Area Physicians
Academic and Community Health Care Partnership to Promote Patient Safety
ORLANDO, Fla., (February 26, 2008) –
Direct from the 2008 HIMSS Annual Conference and Exhibition, Allscripts, the leading provider of clinical software, connectivity and information solutions that physicians use to improve health care, announced today a partnership between the National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative(TM) (NEPSI(TM)), and two of the Tampa Bay area’s largest health care organizations to improve patient safety through electronic prescribing.
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BayCare Health System and USF Health together will lead the deployment of free, web-based electronic prescribing to all physicians in the Tampa Bay area as the regional sponsors of NEPSI, a coalition of technology and health care companies led by Allscripts and Dell. Both Florida organizations are proven leaders in quality and safety improvement, and have partnered successfully on several initiatives. They join more than a dozen other major health care provider organizations across the nation in leading the delivery and support of NEPSI technology to physicians in their states and regions by providing education, training, incentives and local physician support.
“BayCare Health System is pleased to play a role in reducing preventable medication errors through participation in the NEPSI initiative,” said Bruce Flareau, MD, Chief Informatics Officer of BayCare Health System, the largest full-service, community-based health care system in the Tampa Bay area, comprised of the nine leading not-for-profit hospitals and 11 community-based outpatient centers. “Our support of free e-prescribing will help the Tampa Bay area’s physicians automate their prescription process for accuracy and speed, and will also make available easy-to-use drug reference to support their medication choices.”
The University of South Florida has found that educational programs including medical students and residents help practicing physicians adopt electronic prescribing quickly, said Stephen Klasko, MD, MBA, Dean of the USF College of Medicine and Vice President of USF Health. “The culture change has to span all age groups and specialties,” said Dr. Klasko. “By partnering with BayCare Health System, we believe we can significantly accelerate acceptance of electronic prescribing in both the USF academic setting and BayCare’s community care environment.”
USF Health is comprised of the University of South Florida’s colleges of Public Health, Nursing and Medicine, including its 410 faculty physicians.
“We are pleased to welcome BayCare Health System and USF Health as the first Florida regional sponsors of NEPSI,” said Glen Tullman, Co-Chair of NEPSI and Chief Executive Officer of Allscripts. “Their involvement will help make the patients in the Tampa Bay area safer by helping to put this life- saving technology at the fingertips of providers across the region.”
Preventable medication errors injure at least 1.5 million Americans and claim more than 7,000 lives each year, according to the nonprofit Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences. In an effort to reduce these errors, the IOM has called on all of the nation’s physicians to adopt electronic prescribing by 2010. Yet fewer than 1 in 5 of the nation’s practicing physicians currently process prescriptions electronically. Studies indicate that most physicians have been reluctant to adopt electronic prescribing largely because of the cost of the systems, and a perception that the technology requires too much time to learn and install.
NEPSI is helping to address those barriers by providing thousands of physicians in every state simple, safe and secure electronic prescribing at no cost. NEPSI is led by national sponsors Allscripts and Dell, and includes executive sponsors Cisco, Fujitsu, Microsoft, NaviMedix, Quest Diagnostics, Sprint Nextel and Wolters Kluwer Health; health care sponsors Aetna, Horizon BCBS of New Jersey and WellPoint; connectivity sponsor SureScripts; and search sponsor Google.
The web-based NEPSI software by Allscripts is powered by the same engine that more than 40,000 physicians use to write millions of electronic prescriptions each year. Designed to appeal to physicians in solo practice or small groups, the Allscripts solution is available free to any health care provider with legal authority to prescribe medications, and requires no download, no new hardware, and minimal training. The product can quickly generate secure electronic prescriptions from any web-enabled computer, phone or other device and deliver them computer-to-computer or via electronic fax to nearly 70,000 retail pharmacies – more than 95 percent of all U.S. pharmacies – via SureScripts. All prescriptions are instantly checked for potentially harmful interactions with a patient’s other medications using a real-time complete medication database, as well as real-time notification of insurance formulary status from leading payers, plans and pharmacy benefit managers. Clinicians also can use the NEPSI solution to search and find targeted health- related information for themselves or patients using the NEPSI Custom Search Engine from Google.
Interested physicians can visit the NEPSI web site, www.NationaleRx.com for more information.
About BayCare Health System
BayCare is a family of health care providers consisting of the nine leading not-for-profit hospitals in the Tampa Bay region. With 17,000 employees and other health care services, BayCare is the largest, community- based health system in the region. BayCare’s nine hospitals are: Mease Countryside, Mease Dunedin, Morton Plant, Morton Plant North Bay, St. Anthony’s, St. Joseph’s, St. Joseph’s Children’s, St. Joseph’s Women’s and South Florida Baptist. On the web: www.baycare.org.
About USF Health
USF Health is dedicated to creating a model of health care based on understanding the full spectrum of health. It includes the University of South Florida’s colleges of medicine, nursing, and public health; the schools of biomedical sciences as well as physical therapy & rehabilitation sciences; and the USF Physicians Group. With $308 million in research funding last year, USF is one of the nation’s top 63 public research universities and one of Florida’s top three research universities. On the web: www.health.usf.edu.
About NEPSI
The National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative (NEPSI) is a coalition of the nation’s most prominent technology companies and leading health care organizations dedicated to improving patient safety by providing free access to simple, safe and secure electronic prescribing for every physician in America. NEPSI includes national sponsors Allscripts and Dell; executive sponsors Cisco, Fujitsu, Microsoft, NaviMedix, Quest Diagnostics, Sprint Nextel and Wolters Kluwer Health; health care sponsors Aetna, Horizon BCBS of New Jersey and WellPoint; connectivity sponsor SureScripts; and search sponsor Google. Several integrated delivery networks and physician groups across the US are leading the rollout of the NEPSI electronic prescribing solution within their states and regions. For more information, visit NEPSI on the web at www.NationaleRx.com.
About Allscripts
Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX) is the leading provider of clinical software, connectivity and information solutions that physicians use to improve healthcare. The company’s unique solutions inform, connect and transform healthcare, delivering improved care at lower cost. More than 40,000 physicians and thousands of other healthcare professionals in clinics and hospitals nationwide utilize Allscripts to automate and connect everyday tasks such as writing prescriptions, documenting patient care, managing billing and scheduling, and safely discharging patients. To learn more, visit Allscripts at www.allscripts.com.
This announcement may contain forward-looking statements about Allscripts Healthcare Solutions that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are developed by combining currently available information with Allscripts beliefs and assumptions. Forward-looking statements do not guarantee future performance. Because Allscripts cannot predict all of the risks and uncertainties that may affect it, or control the ones it does predict, Allscripts’ actual results may be materially different from the results expressed in its forward-looking statements. For a more complete discussion of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions that may affect Allscripts, see the Company’s 2006 Annual Report on Form 10-K, available through the Web site maintained by the Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov.
SOURCE Allscripts
-0- 02/26/2008
/CONTACT: Dan Michelson, Chief Marketing Officer, +1-312-506-1217,
dan.michelson@allscripts.com, or Todd Stein, Senior Manager|Public Relations,
+1-312-506-1216, todd.stein@allscripts.com, both of Allscripts; or Ed Quioco,
Manager Communications of BayCare Health System, +1-727-519-1239,
Ed.quioco@baycare.org; or Susanna Martinez, Public Relations of USF Health,
+1-813-974-3300, smartin1@health.usf.edu /
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Source: Allscripts
