Posted By Amanda Girard On July 14, 2021
EHRs for E-Prescriptions and Drug Monitoring Programs
Electronic Prescriptions (or e-prescriptions) allow prescribers to write prescriptions digitally. Digital prescriptions can save prescribers time and energy and lower the risks of prescription errors, drug reactions, and dosage miscalculations that send 1.3 million Americans to the emergency room annually. E-prescriptions are now federally mandated in most states with the last states scheduled to begin this requirement by January 2022. There are now state-regulated Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) too. If your health agency is considering adopting or switching to a new Electronic Health Record system (EHR), consider EHRs integrated for e-prescriptions and drug monitoring programs compliance.
The DEA created the Electronic Prescribing of Controlled Substances (EPCS) proposal to make a federal law regulating prescriptions and targeting opioid abuse. Their compliance requires the use of e-prescriptions. All states now have Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) for controlled substance prescriptions also. Those require monitoring of all patients in each state that is prescribed a controlled substance. In some states, it is mandated that pharmacies send that information to the PDMP within 24 hours. With the use of an Electronic Health Record solution, all data is already electronic. That can help healthcare agencies simplify and speed up the process of sending data to your state’s PDMP to stay in compliance with state regulations. If the e-prescription tool is integrated into your EHR, it saves extra steps and prevents having to use another piece of software in keeping with federal regulations as well.
EHRs can…
- Connect to the Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs
- Alert limits on Controlled Substance Prescriptions
- Offer Clinical Assessment Tools
- Improve Patient Engagement and Education
- Provide tools for Community Outreach
All of these features can help clinicians battle the opioid epidemic that is rampant across the United States. An integrated EHR supporting e-prescriptions and connecting to PDMPs can prevent adverse drug reactions and streamline administrative burdens while doing so, making it good for both patients and doctors. Clinicians are already time-stressed and many experience digital burnout. Having more tools adds technological burdens to their workflows. Integration-ready EHRs help eliminate one more tool your clinicians have to use. This will help them focus on the most important aspect of their jobs – their quality of care.
Schedule a demo and learn more about how Patagonia Health EHR supports EPCS and PDMP requirements.
