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.

Two Telepharmacy CE Presentations at NRHA

UPDATED! There will be two telepharmacy presentations that you can get CE credits for at the National Rural Health Association's "Medication Use in Rural America" conference in Kansas City, Missouri on September 10^th (Conf. Starts the 9^th). David Conejo of Red River Regional Hospital in Bonham, TX, along with Emily Alexander and Becky Harvey of Envision Telepharmacy are presenting:

A telepharmacy case study: Escaping the past and planning for the future
Patient safety, manpower shortages and cost containment help determine the best practice model when hospitals reevaluate pharmacy services. Hear a case study of a critical access hospital in rural Texas using electronic supervision of pharmacy technicians. Topics include obstacles encountered, redirection of resources, a clinical management program addressing medication patient safety goals, and expanding pharmacy services.

Next up is REACH IN (Resources to Enhance the Achievement of Community Health for Indiana)'s presentation entitled Launching your telepharmacy program: It's not about the technology which will "assess the role of community pharmacists by pharmacists and patients in Health Profession Shortage Areas."

Here's a PDF of the entire agenda. See the NRHA website for more details.