DAYTON, OH – The SureScripts-RxHub prescription information network has signed an agreement with Standard Register to develop a process for collecting a patient's medication history for point-of-care use by healthcare providers.

Standard Register, based in Dayton, Ohio, provides document services and technology to a wide range of industries, including healthcare. The company is being tasked with developing a standard approach to collecting and streamlining the medication reconciliation process.

"With SureScripts-RxHub's comprehensive health information network and our technology, we have the opportunity to create clinical solutions that will have a measurable impact on reducing adverse drug events and improve the quality of patient care," said Joe Morgan, Standard Register's acting CEO, who came on board in September following the retirement of Dennis L. Rediker.

The contract comes at a good time for Standard Register, which announced on Oct. 30 a "strategic and organizational realignment" designed to save roughly $33 million per year and put the focus on the healthcare, industrial and commercial market segments. The process includes policy changes, a 5 percent workforce reduction (about 150 jobs), consolidation of warehouses and print centers and a freeze in pension benefits. The company underwent a similar, $40 million realignment last year and has shrunk from a $1.4 billion company with a nearly $60 million profit 10 years ago to having $865 million in sales and losing nearly $19 million the past two years, according to press reports.

According to a study released by Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and published in the September issue of The Journal of General Internal Medicine, 72 percent of all potentially harmful medication discrepancies are the result of incorrect medication histories. And adverse drug events injure or kill more than 770,000 people each year, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.