DAYTON, OH – Skeptics of e-prescribing say the system won’t work unless hospitals and pharmacists have access to all the information they need in making a prescription. Standard Register’s new service aims to do just that.

The Dayton, Ohio-based provider of document and workflow automation services unveiled Rx History Capture last December and is now looking to install that service in hospitals. The system combines prescription data from the SureScripts-RxHub information network with hospital information systems to create a real-time snapshot of a patient’s prescription medication history.

“This doesn’t change the hospital’s workflow. It enables clinicians to do a better job of collecting a patient’s medication history,” said Mick O’Grady, program manager for Standard Register’s Rx History Capture solution.

“Clinicians often walk into this process cold, with no knowledge of the patient’s history. It’s a huge pain to collect that information and have it be accurate.”

“Having accurate prescription information for patients is fundamental to providing quality care. Yet, current processes for gathering medication history are inconsistent and error-prone,” added John Parmley, Standard Register’s director of health risk management programs. “They leave the door open to ADEs.”

In a 2006 report requested by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Institute of Medicine concluded that at least 1.5 million adverse drug events (ADEs) occur in the United States each year, and referenced another study that indicated each ADE adds roughly $8,750 to the cost of a hospital stay.

The report came out in favor of e-prescribing because it avoids the mistakes that accompany handwritten prescriptions, it’s tied into a patient’s medication history, and it follows the patient outside the hospital – to the doctor’s office, nursing home and/or pharmacy.

“Medication history is about what a patient does at home as well as what’s done at the hospital,” said Sue Murphy, a clinical specialist at Standard Register. “That’s a very important piece of the puzzle. There was a time in healthcare when we ignored that and we ended up disrupting the routine” of patient care.

Murphy said an important facet of each patient’s medication history is not only the medications prescribed, but also an indication of whether those prescriptions were filled. That information, she said, helps clinicians as well as pharmacists.

 “The pharmacists always get the train wrecks,” she says, as they deal with incomplete medical histories or patients under duress. “They need an accurate snapshot as much as anyone else.”