Archive for May, 2011
Meaningful Use Leads to Growth of E-Prescribing Adoption by Physicians
May 13th
According to a new report by Surescripts®, federal incentives to support healthcare IT have contributed to the growth of the nation’s use of electronic prescriptions by 72% in the previous year.
Surescripts has released “The National Progress Report on E-Prescribing and Interoperable Healthcare”, which tracks the status of e-prescribing adoption and use in the United States. This year’s report measures the effect of federal incentives on the growth of e-prescribing and EHR use in the last 3 years. The number of e-prescription subscribers grew from 74,000 in 2008 to 234,000 by 2010.
The report gives the following highlights:
- E-prescribing is most popularly being adopted by cardiologists and family practitioners with adoption rates of 49% and 47% respectively
- By the end of 2010, 25% of all eligible prescriptions were sent electronically
- In 2010, about twice as many physicians had electronic access to patient’s prescription benefit information and medical history that allowed them to write safer low cost prescriptions
- 91% of community pharmacies and six of the country’s largest mail-order pharmacies were able to receive electronic prescriptions by the end of 2010
Electronic prescribing will become the mainstream practice in the coming years, eliminating fax and paperwork. According to the report, Surescripts® aims to provide better healthcare practices at lower costs.
Internet Gives Way to Increases in Prescription Drug Abuse
May 8th
A new Health Affairs report reveals that the rise in availability and use of the Internet is a major contributor to the trend of prescription drug abuse in the country.
The study shows that a 10% increase in the use of high-speed internet leads to a 1% growth in prescription drug abuse through admissions in a medical facility. The household availability of the Internet increased from 18% in 1997 to 61% in 2007.
The report evaluates internet penetration across various states between 2000 and 2007 to check the effect of broad internet use on the tendency of drug abuse. For that they use the information from the Federal Communications Commission high-speed Internet deployment database and the Treatment Episode Data Set, maintained by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
In this time frame, the states with higher internet growth saw increased admission to substance abuse treatment facilities; while there was not much growth in the abuse of alcohol, cocaine and heroin. A major contributor to this trend is the existence of online pharmacies that sell prescription drugs illegally.
Continua Guidelines for Connected Healthcare Technology
May 7th
Continua Health Alliance, an international non-profit organization, announces the public release of its 2010 Design Guidelines for healthcare networks. Releasing the guidelines to its members is a huge milestone achieved by the alliance that will create an end-to-end personally connected healthcare network for consumers.
The industry standards and specifications selected by the alliance to ensure interoperability are also made accessible to members and non-members as these design guidelines go public.
This latest edition of guidelines also incorporates the following:
- Wide Area Network (WAN) interface, which takes data from an aggregation or hub device, such as a PC, mobile phone or health appliance, and sends it forward through a standardized model for remote monitoring servers or electronic health records. This service was developed in collaboration with the Integrating for Healthcare Enterprise (IHE)
- Support for two new Personal Area Network (PAN) and Sensor-LAN device types: peak flow meters and adherence monitors to be used in medication monitoring
- Updates and improvements to the ISO/IEEE Base Framework Specification that identifies a common transmission protocol of Continua device data regardless of the device or application
- ZigBee support into the Sensor-Local Area Network (Sensor-LAN) interface, preferred for its efficiency in working with multiple sensors in the home.
- Email support to the Health Record Network (HRN) interface that serves as an interface between a remote monitoring server and an electronic health record (EHR)
The 2011 Design Guidelines, which include improved identity management, data integrity and consent management are under consideration and are expected to be released for Continua members later this year.