Establishment of Health Information Exchange Facilitates Telepharmacy Service

InformationWeek published an interesting article today about Health Information Exchanges (networks for sharing patient information between health-systems) in the United States. Marianne Kolbasuk McGee highlights a specific network, the Western Washington Rural Health Care Collaborative where by virtue of the fact that they use an Information Exchange, the hospitals are able to provide telepharmacy services to each other:

The exchange will initially provide the smaller hospitals, some of which have fewer than 25 beds and are located 35 or more miles from other healthcare providers, with telepharmacy services. Patient data, such as allergies, medications, lab results, and demographic information, is collected in a central repository, and pharmacists at one of the facilities can remotely provide assistance to other hospitals.

The article also mentions how 20 billion federal "stimulus" dollars have made it to or are destined for Healthcare IT needs of various health-systems around the US. Health Information Exchanges are one major result, and apparently provide a ready infrastructure for telepharmacy services.

Two quick Telepharmacy updates

Photo by Tammy Lawson

First, Tammy Lawson of the Times Republican reports that the US government is building a new Veterans Affairs (VA) clinic in Marshalltown, Iowa whose pharmacy will be serviced by remote pharmacists. This no doubt sprung from their other work in Iowa where they identified the program as one of their best and most efficient.

Second, an update on Comprehensive Pharmacy Services' newly acquired remote pharmacy division, now with a new name, comes from a small article buried in Memphis' Commercial Appeal online magazine:

Rx Remote Solutions

Comprehensive Pharmacy Services has renamed its newly acquired remote-order-entry division to Rx Remote Solutions.

Memphis-based CPS bought Napierville, Ill.-based RxKnights Inc. in June for an undisclosed amount.

Rx Remote Solutions employs pharmacists at a call center who answer calls from health care facilities including hospitals, nursing homes and behavioral health centers.

The pharmacists will have access to the facilities' patient files and will be able to review and approve medication orders even late at night.

It will be interesting to see how they do entering the remote pharmacy market around the US. You can bet the Telepharmacy Blog will be covering it.

Remote Order Entry constitutes "great leadership", gets hospital recognized by state hospital association

The Kansas Hospital Education and Research Foundation will recognize 5 hospitals in Kansas for innovative health care solutions tomorrow at the Kansas Hospital Association conference in Wichita, according to Josh Heck of the Witchita Business Journal. There were 2 co-winners and 3 honorable mentions:

Via Christi’s honorable mention is for its ePharmacy program to reduce medication errors.

Via Christi added to that effort Tuesday by signing the first hospital outside of its own health system as a subscriber to ePharmacy.

Hiawatha Community Hospital was added following a month-long test period. With the program, an ePharmacist reviews orders for the hospital seven days a week through a remote order entry system under which hospitals scan or fax orders.

As you can see, Via Christi (which we've been covering here) is really turning heads with their "ePharmacy" (aka Telepharmacy) program. They do remote order entry for outlying hospitals, and according to the article, just had Hiawatha Community Hospital sign on.