ePrescribing

While I recognize the vision and strategy associated with eprescribing, I fear it may put emergency medicine in a rather untenable position. As hospital based providers they are closely partnered with their facilities and strive to not only meet the needs of their patients and their families but support the mission, vision and strategies of their partner hospitals, not the least of which is their information technology strategies. Many physician groups have clearly demonstrated that while their partnerships allow them to be influencers, they are not the decision makers as it pertains to a hospitals overarching IT strategy, the functional requirements, the interfaces, the implementation, the supporting workflow and processes or the organizational priorities. Even attempts of ED physicians to purchase technology to be integrated in to ED workflow have met with tremendous resistance due to the impact on hospital IT resource allocation, current priorities and long term strategies.

It is for this reason I suggest either exemption from both the bonus and penalty phase of the eprescribing initiative or the inclusion of hospitals in a similar measure to incentivize the rapid adoption of eprescribing compliant applications for all hospital based providers. Alignment with between hospitals and physicians will be critical in producing the desired outcome without comprising a relationship necessary to drive quality patient care.

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed on this blog site are mine and do not necessarily represent those of the T-System. These posts represent personal opinions that may or may not reflect my professional opinions. I’ll try to let you know if I am having a personal or professional rant.