Academic and Community Health Care Partnership to Promote Patient Safety
ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Direct from the 2008
HIMSS Annual Conference and Exhibition, Allscripts, the leading provider of
clinical software, connectivity and information solutions that physicians use
to improve health care, announced today a partnership between the National
ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative(TM) (NEPSI(TM)), and two of the Tampa
Bay area’s largest health care organizations to improve patient safety through
electronic prescribing.
(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20061005/ALLSCRIPTSLOGO-b)
BayCare Health System and USF Health together will lead the deployment of
free, web-based electronic prescribing to all physicians in the Tampa Bay area
as the regional sponsors of NEPSI, a coalition of technology and health care
companies led by Allscripts and Dell. Both Florida organizations are proven
leaders in quality and safety improvement, and have partnered successfully on
several initiatives. They join more than a dozen other major health care
provider organizations across the nation in leading the delivery and support
of NEPSI technology to physicians in their states and regions by providing
education, training, incentives and local physician support.
“BayCare Health System is pleased to play a role in reducing preventable
medication errors through participation in the NEPSI initiative,” said Bruce
Flareau, MD, Chief Informatics Officer of BayCare Health System, the largest
full-service, community-based health care system in the Tampa Bay area,
comprised of the nine leading not-for-profit hospitals and 11 community-based
outpatient centers. “Our support of free e-prescribing will help the Tampa Bay
area’s physicians automate their prescription process for accuracy and speed,
and will also make available easy-to-use drug reference to support their
medication choices.”
The University of South Florida has found that educational programs
including medical students and residents help practicing physicians adopt
electronic prescribing quickly, said Stephen Klasko, MD, MBA, Dean of the USF
College of Medicine and Vice President of USF Health. “The culture change has
to span all age groups and specialties,” said Dr. Klasko. “By partnering with
BayCare Health System, we believe we can significantly accelerate acceptance
of electronic prescribing in both the USF academic setting and BayCare’s
community care environment.”
USF Health is comprised of the University of South Florida’s colleges of
Public Health, Nursing and Medicine, including its 410 faculty physicians.
“We are pleased to welcome BayCare Health System and USF Health as the
first Florida regional sponsors of NEPSI,” said Glen Tullman, Co-Chair of
NEPSI and Chief Executive Officer of Allscripts. “Their involvement will help
make the patients in the Tampa Bay area safer by helping to put this life-
saving technology at the fingertips of providers across the region.”
Preventable medication errors injure at least 1.5 million Americans and
claim more than 7,000 lives each year, according to the nonprofit Institute of
Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences. In an effort to reduce
these errors, the IOM has called on all of the nation’s physicians to adopt
electronic prescribing by 2010. Yet fewer than 1 in 5 of the nation’s
practicing physicians currently process prescriptions electronically. Studies
indicate that most physicians have been reluctant to adopt electronic
prescribing largely because of the cost of the systems, and a perception that
the technology requires too much time to learn and install.
NEPSI is helping to address those barriers by providing thousands of
physicians in every state simple, safe and secure electronic prescribing at no
cost. NEPSI is led by national sponsors Allscripts and Dell, and includes
executive sponsors Cisco, Fujitsu, Microsoft, NaviMedix, Quest Diagnostics,
Sprint Nextel and Wolters Kluwer Health; health care sponsors Aetna, Horizon
BCBS of New Jersey and WellPoint; connectivity sponsor SureScripts; and search
sponsor Google.
The web-based NEPSI software by Allscripts is powered by the same engine
that more than 40,000 physicians use to write millions of electronic
prescriptions each year. Designed to appeal to physicians in solo practice or
small groups, the Allscripts solution is available free to any health care
provider with legal authority to prescribe medications, and requires no
download, no new hardware, and minimal training. The product can quickly
generate secure electronic prescriptions from any web-enabled computer, phone
or other device and deliver them computer-to-computer or via electronic fax to
nearly 70,000 retail pharmacies – more than 95 percent of all U.S. pharmacies
– via SureScripts. All prescriptions are instantly checked for potentially
harmful interactions with a patient’s other medications using a real-time
complete medication database, as well as real-time notification of insurance
formulary status from leading payers, plans and pharmacy benefit managers.
Clinicians also can use the NEPSI solution to search and find targeted health-
related information for themselves or patients using the NEPSI Custom Search
Engine from Google.
Interested physicians can visit the NEPSI web site, www.NationaleRx.com
for more information.
About BayCare Health System
BayCare is a family of health care providers consisting of the nine
leading not-for-profit hospitals in the Tampa Bay region. With 17,000
employees and other health care services, BayCare is the largest, community-
based health system in the region. BayCare’s nine hospitals are: Mease
Countryside, Mease Dunedin, Morton Plant, Morton Plant North Bay, St.
Anthony’s, St. Joseph’s, St. Joseph’s Children’s, St. Joseph’s Women’s and
South Florida Baptist. On the web: www.baycare.org.
About USF Health
USF Health is dedicated to creating a model of health care based on
understanding the full spectrum of health. It includes the University of South
Florida’s colleges of medicine, nursing, and public health; the schools of
biomedical sciences as well as physical therapy & rehabilitation sciences; and
the USF Physicians Group. With $308 million in research funding last year, USF
is one of the nation’s top 63 public research universities and one of
Florida’s top three research universities. On the web: www.health.usf.edu.
About NEPSI
The National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative (NEPSI) is a coalition
of the nation’s most prominent technology companies and leading health care
organizations dedicated to improving patient safety by providing free access
to simple, safe and secure electronic prescribing for every physician in
America. NEPSI includes national sponsors Allscripts and Dell; executive
sponsors Cisco, Fujitsu, Microsoft, NaviMedix, Quest Diagnostics, Sprint
Nextel and Wolters Kluwer Health; health care sponsors Aetna, Horizon BCBS of
New Jersey and WellPoint; connectivity sponsor SureScripts; and search sponsor
Google. Several integrated delivery networks and physician groups across the
US are leading the rollout of the NEPSI electronic prescribing solution within
their states and regions. For more information, visit NEPSI on the web at
www.NationaleRx.com.
About Allscripts
Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX) is the leading provider of clinical software,
connectivity and information solutions that physicians use to improve
healthcare. The company’s unique solutions inform, connect and transform
healthcare, delivering improved care at lower cost. More than 40,000
physicians and thousands of other healthcare professionals in clinics and
hospitals nationwide utilize Allscripts to automate and connect everyday tasks
such as writing prescriptions, documenting patient care, managing billing and
scheduling, and safely discharging patients. To learn more, visit Allscripts
at www.allscripts.com.
This announcement may contain forward-looking statements about Allscripts
Healthcare Solutions that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements
are developed by combining currently available information with Allscripts
beliefs and assumptions. Forward-looking statements do not guarantee future
performance. Because Allscripts cannot predict all of the risks and
uncertainties that may affect it, or control the ones it does predict,
Allscripts’ actual results may be materially different from the results
expressed in its forward-looking statements. For a more complete discussion of
the risks, uncertainties and assumptions that may affect Allscripts, see the
Company’s 2006 Annual Report on Form 10-K, available through the Web site
maintained by the Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov.
SOURCE Allscripts
-0- 02/26/2008
/CONTACT: Dan Michelson, Chief Marketing Officer, +1-312-506-1217,
dan.michelson@allscripts.com, or Todd Stein, Senior Manager|Public Relations,
+1-312-506-1216, todd.stein@allscripts.com, both of Allscripts; or Ed Quioco,
Manager Communications of BayCare Health System, +1-727-519-1239,
Ed.quioco@baycare.org; or Susanna Martinez, Public Relations of USF Health,
+1-813-974-3300, smartin1@health.usf.edu /
/Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20061005/ALLSCRIPTSLOGO-b
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com/
/Web site: https://www.allscripts.com /
(MDRX)
CO: Allscripts
ST: Illinois
IN: HEA
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