Nation’s Healthcare IT Leaders Form Café Rx, New Alliance to Facilitate ePrescribing
Collaborative effort to encourage physicians, payors, providers and retail pharmacies to embrace ePrescribing
10 August 2004
Accelerating the adoption of ePrescribing is the goal of a new healthcare industry
initiative – Café Rx – formed by nine of the nation’s leading healthcare IT solution
providers.
The new coalition, whose founding members include Allscripts Healthcare Solutions,
Capgemini, Cisco Systems, HP, Microsoft, the National Council for Prescription
Drug Programs (NCPDP), NDCHealth, RxHub and SureScripts, was announced today at
the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs’ (NCPDP) Educational Forum
in San Francisco.
ePrescribing – the ability for a physician to electronically submit a “clean”
prescription directly to a pharmacy from the point of care – has been widely viewed
as a critical element in improving the quality of patient health care and reducing
medication errors. In fact, developing standards to facilitate ePrescribing was
one of the key action items in the government’s plan to expedite the adoption
of electronic medical records and build a national electronic health information
infrastructure in the United States. The report was prepared by David J. Brailer,
MD, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
“Café Rx will promote and support real-time connectivity between physicians,
payors, pharmacy benefit managers and retail pharmacies through vendor-neutral
platforms and solutions,” noted Donald Gravlin, vice president, and chief technology
officer for Capgemini Health’s payor practice. “We view ePrescribing as an essential
step in the migration to the comprehensive automation of clinical processes.”
To encourage the adoption of ePrescribing, Café Rx will provide payers and physicians
with successful strategies and best practice models; offer extensive information
on ePrescribing through its Website (www.caferx.org); launch a program to educate physicians and their office staffs about the value
of ePrescribing; and support lobbying efforts that urge federal and state governments
to incent the adoption of ePrescribing and electronic medical records.
“We applaud the leadership of Café Rx and its efforts to move the industry forward
in this important arena,” said Janet Marchibroda, CEO of eHealth Initiative, a
non-profit multi-stakeholder organization that has been leading the charge for
the improved quality, safety and efficiency in healthcare through greater use
of information technology. “Based on the tremendous benefits that ePrescribing
delivers to all the key stakeholders, as learned from our National Electronic
Prescribing report release earlier this spring, it is experiencing increased acceptance,
but we still have a long way to go.”
The adoption of ePrescribing will benefit patients, physicians and pharmacists
by significantly decreasing medication errors, reducing the incidence of adverse
drug reactions, saving physicians and pharmacists valuable time now spent on non-clinical
administrative tasks, and enabling payers to improve formulary program compliance
– collectively saving millions of dollars while potentially increasing patient
and physician satisfaction.
The bulk of the over 3.7 billion prescriptions issued last year were still written
manually, generating the need for an estimated 150 million phone calls from pharmacists
to physicians’ offices for clarification on handwriting, dosing and other issues.
Up to 40 percent of prescriptions require reworking at the retail pharmacy before
they are dispensed to the patient, according to the National Association of Chain
Drug Stores. Medication errors are currently responsible for an estimated 7,000
deaths per year, and approximately $77 billion is spent annually on treatment
of adverse drug events.
Emerging support for ePrescribing by large payers is an important part of the
equation. One promising initiative expected to help break down the barriers to
ePrescribing is WellPoint Health System’s Physician Quality and Technology Initiative
(PQTI) program that includes a $40 million investment in providing physicians
with new technology in the form of handheld devices and computers for clinical
use. “We see ePrescribing as an excellent opportunity to create a foundation for
deployment of information technology solutions in the clinical environment, while
delivering significant value in its own right,” said Dr. Charles Kennedy, M.D.,
vice president of clinical informatics at WellPoint.
“NCPDP is committed to helping provide solutions for the benefit of consumer
care and our healthcare system,” explained Lee Ann Stember, President of NCPDP.
“This Educational Forum, ‘ePrescribing: The Wave of the Future’, is a fitting
venue to announce such a significant project. We are elated to be involved with
Café Rx.”
Membership in Café Rx is open to all healthcare IT solution providers that agree
to support the group’s guiding principles. The following organizations are the
founding advisors to Café Rx:
- Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, the leading provider of clinical software, connectivity and information solutions
that physicians use to improve healthcare, including electronic prescribing and
electronic medical records.
- Capgemini, the leading healthcare consultancy in the U.S., provides global professional
services consulting, technology and outsourcing to the health industry.
- Cisco Systems, the worldwide leader in networking technology, provides networking solutions
for the healthcare community that enable both business and clinical transformation.
- HP, dedicated to deploying technology and business solutions, is committed to transforming
the health ecosystem through innovation and collaboration focused on improving
individual wellness.
- Microsoft, which offers a comprehensive range of solutions, platforms and technologies
used throughout the health ecosystem.
- National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP), an ANSI accredited Standards Development Organization with over 1400
members representing all parties interested in electronic standardization within
the pharmacy services sector.
- NDCHealth, uniquely positioned in healthcare as the leader in point-of-care systems, electronic
connectivity and information solutions to pharmacies, hospitals, physicians and
payers.
- RxHub, which connects the prescribing industry and provides doctors and providers
with formulary access, patient medication eligibility and medical history.
- SureScripts, which completes the electronic highway by connecting retail pharmacies with
physician offices via their technology applications offering electronic prescribing,
is dedicated to improving the quality, safety and efficiency of the prescribing
process.
For more information about Café Rx and its guiding principles, please visit www.caferx.org
