E-Prescribe Heats Up, But Will It Save Your Practice Cash?
Posted on 30. Mar, 2009 by in Provider News
Academia & Corporations Look to Crumple Up Paper Prescriptions
In a few years, the slip of paper from the doctor that patients hand to a pharmacist may be a thing of the past in the Tampa Bay area.
The University of South Florida and a corporate partner, Allscripts, are pushing region-wide e-prescription, the St. Petersburg Times reported March 17. Electronic prescriptions replace paper and scrawls with computers and phone lines to send a drug order from the doctor’s office to the drug store.
The program, which USF said is the first of its kind in the United States, will start small. But Stephen Klasko, MD, the CEO of USF Health and dean of the school’s College of Medicine, wants $18 million in federal economic stimulus money to hire an “army of e-health ambassadors,” the paper reported. The trainers would visit doctors throughout 10 counties to sell physicians on e-prescribing.
The Money’s Just Waiting to Be Spent
The economic stimulus bill signed by President Barack Obama last month included about $19 billion to promote the use of healthcare information technology, including e-prescribing.
As many as 75 percent of U.S. doctors will be writing electronic prescriptions within five years, thanks to new federal spending to encourage e-prescribing, according to a forecast sponsored by the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association. PCMA represents U.S. pharmacy-benefit managers.
What’s more, the study projected that e-prescribing would save the U.S. government $22 billion over the next decade, more than covering the entire healthcare IT part of the stimulus bill, Reuters reported.
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