• DrFirst’s Next-Generation SmartSig 2.0 Solution Improves the Quality of Medication History to Help Protect Patients From Adverse Drug Events

    Patented artificial intelligence accurately translates 93% of imported prescription information, improving reconciliation accuracy and workflow efficiency

    Rockville, Md., June 30, 2020 – Healthcare technology pioneer DrFirst today announced the release of the next generation of its SmartSig technology, which uses patented artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the quality of patient medication history when it is imported into hospitals’ and health systems’ electronic health record (EHR) systems. Clinicians use the imported information for medication reconciliation, which is recommended every time a patient is admitted, transferred, or discharged from a healthcare facility. Accurate medication reconciliation is a National Patient Safety Goal of The Joint Commission.

    SmartSig 2.0 accurately translates nearly 93% of incoming prescription information, called sigs, helping avoid medication errors and saving up to 30 seconds of work for each drug entered during the medication reconciliation process. This time savings can add up to several thousands of hours in a month, depending on the size of the hospital or health system. For a mid- to large-size hospital reconciling more than 2 million patient medications in a month, this could save more than 200,000 work hours per year.

    In an initial study with six health systems, SmartSig 2.0 further enhanced the quality of structured and codified sigs over the previous version. Sig translations from free text increased by an average of 11% with the next-generation technology, compared to SmartSig 1.0, which already improved translation and inference by up to 82%. The early adopters include Covenant HealthCare (Saginaw, Mich.), King’s Daughters Medical Center (Brookhaven, Miss.), Lafayette General Health (Lafayette, La.), Maimonides Medical Center (Brooklyn, N.Y.), and St. Claire HealthCare (Morehead, Ky.).

    “SmartSig 2.0 represents a dramatic leap forward in quality for medication history,” said Rebecca Sulfridge, Pharm.D., an emergency medicine clinical specialist with Covenant HealthCare in Saginaw, Mich., which has integrated DrFirst’s MedHx solution into its EHR. “We are spending less time reconciling medication histories manually, and in the first month of use, we recaptured an additional 15% productivity per shift, which represents approximately $650,000 per month, while also improving patient safety and outcomes. This is especially helpful during the COVID-19 pandemic when we are trying to minimize any additional patient risks and protect staff from unnecessary face-to-face exposure.”

    On discharge, an estimated 66% of data is missing essential prescription instructions, or sigs, increasing the risk of adverse drug events that compromise patient safety. In addition, the wide variability of sig terminology presents a more significant challenge than most people might imagine for translating and structuring the data, said G. Cameron Deemer, president of DrFirst. “Even a simple prescription instruction, such as ‘take one tablet by mouth once daily,’ can have hundreds of text variations,” he explained. These gaps in prescription histories complicate the medication reconciliation process, often requiring clinicians and staff to spend hours conferring with pharmacies and other providers to gather missing sig details and then manually enter them.

    DrFirst’s SmartSig is incorporated into the company’s MedHx solution, which provides more complete, clean, and consumable patient medication history for the medication reconciliation process. When medications are imported into EHRs, sigs associated with them typically arrive as unstructured free text, often with missing pieces of information and using a variety of terms for the same instructions (e.g., “by mouth” vs. “orally”) which makes the process of entering the medications labor-intensive and increases the risk of adverse drug events (ADEs).

    SmartSig AI addresses these challenges by producing accurate, structured, real-time translations. The technology converts free text elements of medication sigs into a health system’s standard terminology and processes the data into appropriate fields so that it becomes functional within the EHR. With better and actionable data, health systems’ EHRs can more accurately trigger critical safety checks, such as drug interactions and allergy alerts.

    A recent study by the University of Michigan reveals that quality issues due to free-text sigs also negatively impact pharmacy workflow and endangers patients, requiring pharmacists to manually edit 84% of electronic prescriptions to create accurate patient labels, which can still introduce human errors. The study, published in May by BMJ Quality & Safety, concludes that “development of tools and techniques such as a comprehensive set of structured direction components or machine learning-based natural language processing techniques may help produce clear directions.”

    The AI this landmark study calls for is “exactly what SmartSig delivers,” said Deemer. “SmartSig’s patented AI is a game-changing solution that nearly perfects the quality of converted free-text sigs and drastically reduces the amount of time staff must spend verifying and reconciling medication histories,” he added. “More importantly, SmartSig has the potential to reduce adverse drug events, which are blamed for more than 100,000 deaths per year.”

    First implemented in 2015, SmartSig now serves health systems across the U.S. and Canada as part of DrFirst’s MedHx solution, processing millions of pieces of information daily. Early adopters of SmartSig 2.0 within MedHx have successfully integrated the solution with all the major EHRs in the U.S.

    About SmartSig

    SmartSig, with DrFirst’s patented AI is a key part of the company’s SmartSuite of solutions, which also includes SmartSearch, SmartStrings, SmartDrug, and SmartScan. SmartSuite’s AI allows health systems and pharmacies to dramatically improve their workflow by enhancing the usability of data, making it structured and codified. Driven by DrFirst’s patented artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, SmartSuite continually learns, getting smarter and smarter over time and further reducing clicks and keystrokes.

    About DrFirst

    Since 2000, DrFirst has pioneered healthcare technology solutions and consulting services that securely connect people at touchpoints of care to improve patient outcomes. We create unconventional solutions that solve care collaboration, medication management, price transparency, and adherence challenges faced in healthcare. We unite the Healthiverse by providing our clients with real-time access to the information they need, exactly when and how they need it – so patients get the best care possible. DrFirst solutions are used by nearly 300,000 healthcare professionals, including more than 100,000 prescribers and more than 1,400 hospitals in the U.S. and Canada. To learn more, visit DrFirst.com and follow @DrFirst.

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    DrFirst Media Contact

    Sofia Kosmetatos, Amendola Communications

    646-431-8423

    [email protected]

    Posted 6.30.2020

  • Residents of Some Cities Unwilling to Comply with COVID-19 Prevention Behaviors

    ANN ARBOR, MI, and HERSHEY, PA, June. 30, 2020 – Several U.S. cities may be at increased risk of surges in COVID-19 cases as they reopen their economies because their residents are unwilling to follow practices that reduce the spread of the disease, according to Penn State researchers.
     
    Dr. Robert Lennon, an associate professor of family and community medicine at Penn State College of Medicine, and his colleagues, including Dr. Lauren Van Scoy, co-director of the Qualitative Mixed Methods Core at the College of Medicine, developed a survey in collaboration with the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) to determine whether people were willing to follow key recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in preventing the spread of COVID-19. Lennon says the preliminary findings, which are in press and will be published by SLACK Incorporated in an upcoming issue of HLRP: Health, Literacy, Research and Practice, should cause concern for public health experts and government officials in certain regions.
     
    “Our data indicate that there is a public lack of intent to comply with certain CDC recommendations in several parts of the United States,” said Lennon, principal investigator of the study. “As a result, these areas might be at increased risk for a surge in COVID-19 cases as quarantine restrictions ease.”
     
    Study participants reported demographic information as well as their knowledge of and intent to comply with the CDC’s five recommendations for preventing COVID-19. The recommendations are:
     
    • Wash your hands often (for 20 seconds or more);
    • Maintain social distancing/social isolation even if you have no symptoms;
    • Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth (avoid touching your face);
    • Cough or sneeze into your elbow; and
    • Stay at home if you feel unwell. If you have a fever, cough and difficulty breathing seek medical attention and call in advance
     
    The global survey, available online in more than 23 languages, assesses public perceptions and compliance with COVID-19 health safety recommendations. Lennon and fellow investigators at Penn State College of Medicine developed the questionnaire and CHIME provided the infrastructure for the survey and has helped distribute it globally.  
     
    “It is important that we have accurate data from around the world to address the pandemic,” said CHIME President and CEO, Russell Branzell. “We have the ability to examine data at the city level or expand to the country level and beyond to assess what precautions are being followed. This will help health organizations proactively revise their public education programs, which is key to keeping their communities healthy and safe.”
     
    Lennon and colleagues analyzed responses from more than 5,000 U.S. adults who completed the survey between April 9-15. They used three-digit zip code prefix areas to determine where the participants lived.
     
    Respondents showed substantial, significant differences in their intent to comply with CDC recommendations across different cities. Lennon says that as compliance falls below 80%, the behaviors are less likely to be effective. The team documented a particularly low intent to comply with the recommendation they said is the most important – avoid touching your face. Half or fewer of respondents from Atlanta, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Seattle intend to comply with that one measure. (See the charts below.)
     
    While respondents indicated fairly high intent to comply with other recommendations, all of the cities investigated had compliance near 80% for at least some of the other behaviors. Lennon cautions that the actions of even one individual might undo the work of the majority of people who are following recommendations carefully. For example, an individual leaving home when they are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms may put others at risk for exposure.
     
    The anonymous survey, which has been completed in every state in the U.S. and 70 countries, will remain open until July 9. It takes about five minutes to complete and is available at https://covidsurvey.psu.edu/c/beatcovid. Lennon says that the data may be used to help get people appropriate information from sources they trust to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
     
    “We encourage everyone to participate, especially communities that have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19,” Lennon said. “It’s an opportunity to lend your voice in the fight against this devastating disease.”      
     
    Surav Sakya, Erin Miller, Bethany Snyder, Aleksandra Zgierska and Mack Ruffin of Penn State College of Medicine and Tonguç Yaman of Columbia University also participated in this research.
     
    This research was funded by the Huck Institutes of Life Sciences and the Social Science Research Institute of Penn State and the Department of Family and Community Medicine from Penn State College of Medicine. Department of Family and Community Medicine faculty were involved in study design and manuscript production.
     
    The authors declare no competing interests.
     
    About Penn State College of Medicine
    Located on the campus of Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pa., Penn State College of Medicine boasts a portfolio of nearly $100 million in funded research. Projects range from development of artificial organs and advanced diagnostics to groundbreaking cancer treatments and understanding the fundamental causes of disease. Enrolling its first students in 1967, the College of Medicine has more than 1,700 students and trainees in medicine, nursing, other health professions and biomedical research in both Hershey and State College, Pa.
     
    Contact
    Scott Gilbert
    Team Lead, Public Relations and Multimedia
    717.782.1121
     
    About CHIME
    The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers (CIOs), chief medical information officers (CMIOs), chief nursing information officers (CNIOs), chief innovation officers (CIOs), chief digital officers (CDOs) and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 3,200 members in 56 countries and over 150 healthcare IT business partners and professional services firms, CHIME provides a highly interactive, trusted environment enabling senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate, exchange best practices, address professional development needs and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and care in the communities they serve. For more information, please visit chimecentral.org.
     
    Contact
    Candace Stuart
    Director of Communications and Public Relations, CHIME
    734.665.0000
     
    About Health Literacy Research and Practice
    HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice (HLRP) is a forum for the dissemination of high-quality behavioral and clinical research that bridges research with best practices. HLRP is dedicated to promoting excellence in research and practice to advance the field of health literacy, promote health equity, and reduces health disparities. As an interdisciplinary, international publication, HLRP’s audience includes the full range of investigators, practitioners, and policy-makers engaged in health literacy research and practice, including public health, health services, epidemiology, translational, educational, and interventional research and implementation activities. For more information, visit www.healio.com/hlrp.
     
    Contact
    Shayna Bayard, Managing Editor
    HLRP: Health Literacy Research and Practice
     
    About SLACK Incorporated
    With roots reaching back to 1923, SLACK is a leading provider of information to targeted health care specialties. SLACK produces journals and newspapers in print and online; publishes medical and allied health books; creates and operates websites and Internet-related projects; directs meetings and exhibits; and produces custom newspapers and meeting supplements for health care conventions and meetings. For more information on SLACK Incorporated, visit www.slackinc.com.
     
    About Healio.com
    Healio.com is a medical website, enabling health care specialists to select and tailor news, information and education to their daily practice of medicine. Designed as an in-depth, clinical information resource, Healio.com brings together award-winning news reporting with expert perspectives, dynamic video and multimedia, question-and-answer columns, CME and other educational activities, blogs, peer-reviewed journals and a wide range of popular medical book titles all in one place. For more information, visit Healio.com.

    Posted 6.30.2020

  • Leading Healthcare Organizations Announce Formation of Patient ID Now Coalition

    CHICAGO – June 29, 2020 – Six leading healthcare organizations today announced the formation of a national coalition called Patient ID Now, which is committed to addressing the issue of patient identification by advocating for legislation and regulations. The founding members of Patient ID Now are the American College of Surgeons, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, Inc. (HIMSS), Intermountain Healthcare and Premier Healthcare Alliance.

    The coalition recently launched a website, PatientIDNow.org, which highlights the group’s principles. Noting that failure to accurately identify patients to their data raises patient safety and quality of care concerns, Patient ID Now believes it’s critical for Congress to repeal a section of law that prevents the US Department of Health and Human Services from working with the private sector to develop a nationwide patient identification strategy.

    “It’s inspiring to see six healthcare organizations work together to create positive change for patients and healthcare systems,” said AHIMA CEO Wylecia Wiggs Harris, PhD, CAE. “I am optimistic Patient ID Now will achieve its goals of helping healthcare systems better match patients with their data.”

    Properly matching patients and their data not only improves care but saves resources. The Ponemon Institute indicates that on average, 35 percent of all denied claims result directly from inaccurate patient identification or inaccurate and incomplete patient information, costing the average US healthcare system $1.2 million per year.

    “CHIME is pleased to join the Patient ID Now Coalition as one of its founding members,” said CHIME’s President and CEO Russell Branzell. “CHIME has called for removing the funding ban for many years; the pandemic only amplifies the need for a safe, efficient and accurate strategy for matching patients to their healthcare records. We look forward to working with our colleagues to remove the funding ban and find solutions that will address this important patient safety issue.”

    Patient ID Now invites members of Congress and congressional staff, as well as media, to a virtual Hill briefing on July 7. Speakers will discuss the importance of matching patients and their data, and how Congress can help improve this area of the country’s healthcare system. Opportunities for engagement with speakers will be available. Visit PatientIDNow.org in the coming days to register.

    “HIMSS believes that the ‘partner’ patient and access to their longitudinal record is essential to achieving better care, and our members have long advocated for advancing a nationwide patient matching strategy,” said HIMSS President & CEO Hal Wolf. “However, the outdated and harmful appropriations ban on a unique patient identifier continues to hinder these efforts and must be removed. The inability to accurately match patients with their records not only has severe financial implications, but also impedes health information exchange and most importantly impacts patient safety, including loss of lives. We must act now and remove the ban.”

    Here is what leaders of other coalition member organizations said about the group and its goals:

    • “One of the most critical lessons learned from COVID-19 is the importance of informing patients about every step of their care. By having an accurate way of identifying patients, such as a Unique Patient Identifier (UPI), we can inform patients and clinicians and affect better outcomes. Without an accurate way to identify patients, we limit the quality of care and expose patients to potential harms, creating unknown patient safety risks. A UPI would help to ensure that surgeons have a more accurate and consistent means of linking patients to their health information across the continuum of care, ultimately leading to ensure high quality care.” – Frank G. Opelka, MD, FACS, medical director, quality and health policy, American College of Surgeons
    • “Intermountain Healthcare believes that the best thing for our patients and members is removing the appropriations ban on a unique patient identifier. We are committed to helping make this happen. Lifting the ban will enable a national solution to our current inability to consistently and accurately identify patients to their health records. Lifting the archaic appropriations ban on a unique patient health identifier will save lives and is long overdue.” – Marc Probst, vice president and chief information officer, Intermountain Healthcare
    • “The COVID-19 pandemic has spotlighted the urgent need for healthcare data modernization. Technology is available now to collect and analyze critical public health information that can save lives and deliver more efficient and effective care. Yet, we remain saddled with antiquated collection mechanisms and sources of data. Inaccurate patient matching is one of the areas demanding modernization. The Premier healthcare alliance urges Congress to remove the 21-year ban on providing federal funding to adopt a national unique patient identifier.” – Susan DeVore, chief executive officer, Premier Healthcare Alliance

    About Patient ID Now

    Patient ID Now is a coalition of healthcare organizations representing a wide range of healthcare stakeholders committed to advancing through legislation and regulations a nationwide strategy to address patient identification. Its members are the American College of Surgeons, the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, Inc. (HIMSS), Intermountain Healthcare and Premier Healthcare Alliance.

     

    Posted 6.30.2020

  • Kirby Partners Launches 1-On-1 Executive Career Coaching To Help Job Seekers Get Hired Faster

    June 26, 2020

    Heathrow, FL – On July 1, 2020, Kirby Partners is launching a career coaching practice to help executives accelerate their job search.

    Given today’s difficult job market, many executives are seeking help after being laid off or furloughed. Kirby Partners Career Coaching allows executives to work 1-on-1 with an experienced career coach to develop a plan to get noticed, ace their interviews and land a new job faster.

    As a retained executive search firm, Kirby Partners has helped top healthcare organizations and companies hire exceptional leaders since 1989. The Kirby Partners’ approach to career coaching is based on over three decades of experience working directly with VPs of HR and other hiring authorities.

    Executives working with a Kirby Partners Career Coach, benefit from their coaches’ “inside” knowledge of hiring and experience helping thousands of executives craft better resumes, improve their interviewing skills, and get hired.

    “We’ve informally provided career coaching for years and job seekers have praised the candid, straight-forward guidance we’ve given them,” said Judy Kirby, President of Kirby Partners. “With our help, job seekers feel more confident in their job search approach, get more interviews, and feel prepared to interview well in any scenario, even on video. The timing for launching this service couldn’t be better, and we’re excited to offer job seekers personalized career guidance that should condense their job search timeline,” Kirby said.

    Kirby Partners Career Coaches can help job seekers:

    • Develop an expert-advised plan if they have recently lost their job
    • Explore career options and identify their ideal next job
    • Identify easy ways to improve their resume and online presence
    • Articulate ways they can add value to employers
    • Prepare for interviews with mock interviews and feedback sessions
    • Negotiate a great compensation package

    All coaching sessions are conducted virtually via conference call or video, and four different packages are offered:

    • The “Quick Strategy Session” is a 60-minute session designed for job seekers to quickly get help with the areas they’re struggling with
    • The “Resume Transformation” package helps job seekers overhaul their resume so it stands out and more effectively conveys the value they will bring to
    • The “Fast Track Interview Prep” package includes a full interview preparation strategy session and a mock-interview to help job seekers perfect their interviewing
    • The “Complete VIP Job Search” is a comprehensive package that includes everything in the other offerings along with cover letter and social media assistance, salary negotiation counseling, and 120 days of email access to a coach for complete job search

    Each plan gives job seekers direct access to an expert career coach, with proven experience helping executives land jobs. Kirby Partners Career Coaching spaces will become available for purchase on June 26, 2020 at www.kirbypartners.com/executive-career-coaching. A limited number of coaching spaces are available each month and job seekers are encouraged to purchase early in the month to reserve their spot.

    About Kirby Partners

    Kirby Partners is a retained executive search firm, that places director-level and C-suite executives at healthcare systems, corporations, and consulting firms. Forbes named Kirby Partners one of “America’s Best Executive Search Firms” for three consecutive years. Under the leadership of Judy Kirby, Kirby Partners has successfully placed executives in both interim and full-time leadership positions across the United States since 1989. During this time, Judy and her team have helped thousands of executive job seekers optimize their resume, improve their interviewing skills, and employ strategies to land executive jobs. The Kirby Partners team regularly shares industry insights and career enhancing strategies at industry events including CHIME and HIMSS. 

    Related Link: www.kirbypartners.com/executive-career-coaching

    Posted 6.30.2020

  • PatientPing Launches Route Solution to Guarantee Hospital E-Notifications Condition of Participation Compliance Under CMS’s Interoperability and Patient Access Rule

    According to Survey Data, Just 17% of Hospitals and Health Systems are Familiar with the Condition of Participation Requiring Compliance by May 1, 2021

    Boston—(June 24, 2020)—PatientPing, the nation’s most comprehensive care collaboration platform, today announced the launch of Route, a single solution to ensure hospitals achieve compliance for the electronic patient event notifications (e-notifications) Condition of Participation (CoP) published as part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Interoperability and Patient Access final rule. Route guarantees full e-notifications CoP compliance by enabling hospitals to send electronic, real-time Admission, Discharge, and Transfer (ADT)-based patient event notifications.

    Built on PatientPing’s trusted national e-notifications network, Route alleviates hospitals’ compliance IT and data-sharing burdens to deliver the required electronic ADT event notifications to other providers whenever patients have inpatient or emergency department visits. The solution automatically manages all incoming provider requests for e-notifications via the Route Requester Portal and handles all outbound ADT data feeds to both providers and Health Information Exchanges / intermediaries. Route delivers e-notifications to any providers identified by patients during hospital encounters, such as Primary Care Practitioners, as well as to requesting primary care groups, accountable care organizations, Federally Qualified Health Centers, skilled nursing facilities, and home health agencies— an innovative approach that PatientPing pioneered nearly seven years ago with its Pings solution. Requesting community-based providers have multiple options for the delivery of e-notifications (web application, SMS & email alerts, data exports, HL7 integration) to ensure e-notification delivery is suited to the community providers’ workflow. Route also handles all the complexities around the execution of data share agreements with e-notification recipients.

    “Conditions of Participation are a regulatory mechanism that can’t be taken lightly,” said Rick Lang, CIO of Doylestown Health, an independent non-profit health system serving the suburban communities of Philadelphia as well as Hunterdon and Mercer Counties in New Jersey. “A CIO’s nightmare is getting to the 11th hour only to find your compliance solution is inadequate. I chose PatientPing’s solution, Route, because they are a focused organization that handles all the technical and data sharing complexity of managing multiple provider requests for ADT e-notifications. We know many of the requests will originate from Long-Term Care Facilities and PatientPing’s current network of those facilities is by far the most comprehensive.”

    “Hospitals have limited IT resources and a tight window to comply with the e-notifications CoP requirement. We want to take this burden off their plate so that they can focus on their number one priority, their patients’ health,” said Jay Desai, CEO & co-founder of PatientPing. “At PatientPing, we have spent the last seven years building a scalable and secure infrastructure to connect providers so patients get better care during clinical encounters across all care settings. We are excited to do our part to help hospitals meet the e-notifications CoP requirements with Route by giving them an easy-to-implement, turnkey solution to not only help providers come together, but to also make sure patient visits and transitions between visits are safe.”

    The Route solution also includes patient-level Audit Reporting and a documented policies and procedures Route Guidebook to support hospitals in demonstrating compliance during CMS surveys. If a hospital is ever found to have e-notification CoP deficiencies during a CMS survey due to Route, PatientPing will deploy a compliance expert onsite to help the organization resolve the issue and develop the required corrective action plan within 10 business days at no cost. Hospitals using Route can also expect immediate compliance with over 1,500 post-acute providers and primary care groups who receive PatientPing e-notifications today.

    PatientPing recently conducted a survey of more than 70 hospitals to gauge hospital CIOs’ awareness for e-notifications CoP compliance, and found that just 17% of respondents are familiar with the CMS requirements. With the e-notifications CoP deadline 10 months away, two-thirds of those surveyed are less than confident that their organization will be compliant for the deadline. To provide an overview of what’s outlined and included within the final e-notifications CoP and how the new ADT requirements impact providers and patients, PatientPing will present a webinar, “The CMS Interoperability & Patient Access Rule: E-Notifications Condition of Participation,” on June 30, 2020 at 1pm EST with Vanessa Kuhn, PatientPing’s Director of Policy.

    About the E-Notifications Condition of Participation
    The new electronic event notifications CoP requires hospitals, psychiatric hospitals, and Critical Access Hospitals to make a reasonable effort to send e-notifications to all Primary Care Practitioners, primary care practice groups or entities, and applicable post-acute care providers and suppliers with established care relationships that need the information for treatment, care coordination, or quality improvement activities. E-notifications must be sent at the point of inpatient and emergency department admission/registration and discharge as well as at the point of transfer. The deadline for hospitals to be compliant is May 1, 2021.

    About PatientPing
    PatientPing is an innovative care collaboration platform that reduces the cost of healthcare and improves patient outcomes by seamlessly connecting providers to coordinate patient care. The platform enables providers to collaborate on shared patients through a comprehensive suite of solutions and allows provider organizations, health plans, governments, individuals and the organizations supporting them to leverage real-time patient data to reach their shared goals of improving the efficiency of our healthcare system. PatientPing’s network currently connects over 1,000 hospitals and 5,000 post-acute care facilities, enabling 135 million patient ADT events for 43 million covered lives. Visit www.patientping.com to learn more.

    Posted 6.29.2020

  • Veradigm Supports Patient Access Network Foundation with New Awareness Campaign to Healthcare Providers

    Partnership with leading non-profit to deliver targeted messages direct to clinicians within      their EHR to help reduce patients’ out-of-pocket costs for medication

    CHICAGO – June 22, 2020 – Allscripts Healthcare Solutions (NASDAQ: MDRX) and its payer and life science business unit, Veradigm™, today announced a new partnership with the Patient Access Network (PAN) Foundation, an independent, national 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to helping federally and commercially insured people living with life-threatening, chronic and rare diseases with the out-of-pocket costs for their prescribed medications. Veradigm will leverage its market-leading electronic health record (EHR) messaging capabilities at no cost to the PAN Foundation, delivering information to users of its Veradigm ePrescribe and Practice Fusion EHR platforms to generate awareness and support utilization of the foundation’s programs among tens of thousands of clinicians.

    The PAN Foundation’s mission is to help underinsured people with life-threatening, chronic and rare diseases get the medications and treatments they need by assisting with their out-of-pocket costs and advocating for improved access and affordability. To that end, the organization has provided nearly one million underinsured patients with $3 billion in financial assistance since 2004.

    Veradigm’s provider messaging solutions provide a unique, proven approach to effectively generate awareness, support education, and relay critical information directly to clinicians through their Veradigm EHR platforms, within their day-to-day workflow.  

    “We are proud to provide the PAN Foundation with an effective method to communicate opportunities from the Foundation for clinicians to help their patients reduce the cost of their medication,” says Veradigm VP and General Manager Don Dorfman. “Through our Veradigm RxTruePrice™ solution, Veradigm is already a front-line leader in the fight to make medication more affordable for patients by delivering patient-specific pricing directly to the point of care. Now in partnering with the PAN Foundation, we are empowering providers and patients with access to potential avenues to reduce their cost of care and improve medication adherence and ultimately outcomes.”

    Veradigm partners with healthcare stakeholders like non-profits, biopharma companies, payers, and others to deliver targeted messages specific to provider specialty across appropriate touchpoints throughout the user’s EHR workflow.

    “In working with Veradigm to enhance our ability to communicate with clinicians at the point of care, the PAN Foundation reinforces our commitment to connecting seriously ill and underinsured patients with the financial assistance they need to start and stay on treatment, ,” says PAN Foundation President and CEO Dan Klein. “By coming together with partners like Veradigm, we can expand access to and awareness of our patient assistance programs to reduce the out-of-pocket costs of treatment and improve the lives of patients across the country.“

    Learn more about the PAN Foundation here.

    Learn more about Veradigm solutions for provider messaging here.

    About Veradigm™

    Veradigm is an integrated data systems and services company that combines data-driven clinical insights with actionable tools to help healthcare stakeholders improve the quality, efficiency, and value of healthcare delivery— including biopharma, health plans, healthcare providers, health technology partners, and most importantly, the patients they serve. We are dedicated to simplifying the complicated healthcare system with next-generation healthcare solutions. This is how we are transforming health, insightfully. To learn more, visit www.veradigmhealth.com.

     

    About Allscripts

    Allscripts (NASDAQ: MDRX) is a leader in healthcare information technology solutions that advance clinical, financial and operational results. Our innovative solutions connect people, places and data across an Open, Connected Community of Health™. Connectivity empowers caregivers and consumers to make better decisions, delivering better care for healthier populations. To learn more, visit www.allscripts.com, Twitter, YouTube and It Takes A Community: The Allscripts Blog.

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    © 2020 Allscripts Healthcare, LLC and/or its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.

     

    Allscripts, the Allscripts logo, and other Allscripts marks are trademarks of Allscripts Healthcare, LLC and/or its affiliates. All other products are trademarks of their respective holders, all rights reserved. Reference to these products is not intended to imply affiliation with or sponsorship of Allscripts Healthcare, LLC and/or its affiliates.

     

    For more information contact:

    Investors:

    Stephen Shulstein

    312-386-6735

    [email protected]

     

    Media:
    Concetta Rasiarmos

    312-447-2466

    [email protected]

    Posted 6.28.2020

  • TransformativeMed Partners with Billings Clinic to Improve Care Team Communication

    Brings Together Electronic Medical Records and Streamlined App Technology for Better Collaboration

    SEATTLE, WA, June 23, 2020- PRNewswire — TransformativeMed, which transforms electronic health records (EHRs) with directly embedded apps, announced a six-year partnership with Billings Clinic to optimize its EHR workflow, improve physician and nurse experience and ensure patient safety.

    The partnership with TransformativeMed includes implementing all applications within the Core Work Manager suite—including Core Work Manager Mobile, Core Messaging and Core Notify—as well as the Core COVID-19 App, all of which empower seamless communication across care teams. This technology makes it easier to understand who is assigned to different roles for each patient including primary physician, consulting physicians, care managers and nurses.

    Billings Clinic is Montana’s largest healthcare organization and serves a vast region covering much of the state, northern Wyoming and the western Dakotas. Billings Clinic is a physician-led, integrated multi-specialty group practice with a 304-bed hospital and a Level II trauma center and approximately 4,500 staff including more than 450 physicians and advanced practitioners offering more than 50 specialties.

    Building on their reputation for designing to the needs of different provider specialties, TransformativeMed will also be designing and implementing a Nursing Handoff app configured to further improve communication between nurses and collaboration between shifts. In addition, both companies will be working to enhance the concept of “unified communication” and establishing the EHR as a single source of truth for the composition of the entire care team. The needs for these additional functionalities have been magnified during the COVID-19 pandemic since caring for affected patients relies heavily on efficient handoffs as well as knowing who is on the care team and who is on call at every moment.

    “We want all of our providers to have better visibility into workflows, handoffs and secure communication channels,” said Randy Thompson, MD, chief health analytics officer and physician data scientist at Billings Clinic. “TransformativeMed makes assignments and responsibilities easier for our nurses and physicians while offering a clear and comprehensive visualization of all the care those patients have received and need to receive each shift. Not only will this new seamless workflow protect our patients, but we anticipate it will improve our physicians’ and nurses’ experience as well.”

    High Reliability Organizing
    High reliability organizing (HRO) is a safety and quality concept that originated in academic research of air travel and nuclear energy industries, but has since been applied to numerous other industries, including healthcare. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality defines HROs as entities that “operate in complex, high-hazard domains for extended periods without serious accidents or catastrophic failures,” and who operate in “a condition of persistent mindfulness” that prioritizes safety over other performance pressures.

    For Billings Clinic, part of HRO is having a single source of truth for clinician communication, a standardized approach to safe and reliable handoffs, and support of multidisciplinary quality and safety rounding, with an emphasis on nursing workflows.

    The Core Work Manager application suite will help Billings Clinic achieve those priorities by streamlining workflows and ensuring continuity of care between shifts. That is because Core Work Manager is an app that is natively embedded within the EHR and accessible on a desktop or mobile device. Rich, actionable EHR information is visually presented in a format unique to each specialty’s priorities. Clinical teams caring for a patient have what they need, when they need it, to organize rounds, convey discharge readiness, conduct handoffs and manage their patient list. As status and situations change, smart notifications and secure messaging ensure the right information is provided so care teams can act.

    “Like all leading organizations, Billings Clinic recognizes that without patient safety there can be no quality care,” said Doug Cusick, CEO of TransformativeMed. “That is why we are proud to partner with such a patient-centered organization that has set the admirable goal of HRO. Billings Clinic has fully aligned its values and strategy, and by partnering with TransformativeMed, it is putting the right pieces in place to execute that strategy. This is mission critical and an integrated part of their business model.”

    Billings Clinic is expected to go live on the Core Work Manager suite by July 13.

    About TransformativeMed
    TransformativeMed dramatically improves the usability of Electronic Health Records (EHRs), with specialty-specific and disease-specific workflows, which are embedded within the EHR. The Core Work Manager and Core Diabetes App securely synchronize clinical workflow, tasks, alerts, notifications and messages to harmonize the care team and create seamless communication across clinicians, using any device, including mobile. With TransformativeMed, clinicians are happier and clinical work is streamlined, more efficient, less costly and safer. Learn more at TransformativeMed.com.

    Media Contact:
    Christopher Currington for TransformativeMed
    Amendola Communications
    [email protected]
    314.799.1987  

    SOURCE TransformativeMed

    Posted 6.23.2020

  • Unique Partnership Launches First Pathway to Healthcare IT Jobs

    Optimum Healthcare IT joins with University of North Florida to launch first apprenticeship program for electronic medical records jobs

    Optimum Healthcare IT and the University of North Florida (UNF) today announced a partnership to provide a revolutionary new pathway to good healthcare IT jobs for graduating students.

    As millions of Americans are newly unemployed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and more younger Americans are underemployed due to a lack of digital skills and business knowledge employers are seeking, it is a crucial time to develop new frictionless pathways to robust jobs in growing sectors of the economy.

    One key area is healthcare technology, particularly in the electronic health records (EHR) systems that have become so central to patient care. According to Burning Glass, there are over 40,000 open jobs relating to implementing, configuring, activating and integrating EHRs. Until now, there has not been a college or university that has hosted training on specific EHR platforms.

    Optimum Healthcare IT, a Best in KLAS healthcare staffing and consulting services firm focused on EHRs and other healthcare technologies, is launching America’s first EHR apprenticeship program hosted by UNF at the University’s Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in downtown Jacksonville.

    Both new and recent graduates can apply for the apprenticeship program. Accepted applicants will be hired by Optimum and paid as apprentices from the start of the 12-week training program. After completing training, apprentices will join Optimum project teams serving healthcare systems across the U.S. Ultimately, Optimum expects hospital clients to hire the apprentices.

    Optimum Executive Chairman Gene Scheurer said he is excited to partner with UNF to provide a solution for hospitals in desperate need of trained EHR talent.

    Without the trained EHR talent they need, healthcare organizations are struggling to reap the fruits of the digital revolution in healthcare in terms of improving patient outcomes and reducing costs, said Scheurer. Optimum is investing in high potential graduates, providing them the exact skills our clients are seeking, and a pathway to great careers in healthcare technology.

    UNF President David Szymanski said this new partnership is just one of many examples of UNF’s commitment to helping graduates get quality jobs.

    With the appointment of UNF’s first Vice President of Jobs, our University has a dedicated position in creating strong job opportunities for our students, and we are excited to be hosting America’s first apprenticeship program for electronic health records, said President Szymanski. Thousands of current and future UNF graduates will benefit from this streamlined pathway to obtain great first jobs in the growing healthcare IT sector.

    Optimum CEO Jason Jarrett added that the program would not only be frictionless for apprentices, who will be paid as employees during the company-sponsored training, but also for Optimum’s hospital clients.

    One of the major causes of the skills gap in healthcare IT is that healthcare organizations are unwilling to take a risk on unproven talent, said Jarrett. The Optimum apprenticeship program will allow our clients to evaluate the performance of apprentices on projects before deciding if they wish to hire them. We expect this program to make a major contribution to closing America’s skills gap in healthcare technology.

    About Optimum Healthcare IT
    Optimum Healthcare IT is a Best in KLAS healthcare IT staffing and consulting services firm based in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Optimum provides world-class professional staffing services to fill any need as well as consulting services that encompass advisory, EHR implementation, training and activation, EHR optimization, community connect, managed services, enterprise resource planning, security, and ancillary services – supporting our client’s needs through the continuum of care. Our organization is led by a leadership team with extensive experience in providing expert healthcare staffing and consulting solutions to all types of organizations.

    Visit www.optimumhit.com or call 1.904.373.0831 to find out how your organization can take advantage of our solution offerings.

    About University of North Florida
    UNF is a nationally ranked university in Jacksonville, Florida, nestled on a beautiful 1,300-acre nature preserve. The University features six colleges of distinction, nationally recognized flagship programs, and offers 60 bachelor’s degree programs and over 75 areas of concentration. UNF offers a unique student-centered academic experience that is creating the next generation of thinkers, leaders, and problem solvers. More information at www.unf.edu.

    For further questions, please contact:

    Optimum Healthcare IT
    Susie Morgan
    Chief Human Resources Officer
    Optimum Healthcare IT
    (904) 373-0831
    [email protected]

    University of North Florida
    Ginny Walthour
    Media Relations Director
    University of North Florida
    (904) 620-2102
    [email protected]

    Posted 6.23.2020

  • Carle Foundation Hospital Completes Successful Virtual Epic HER Go-Live with Pivot Point Consulting & Realizes Cost Savings and Virtual Efficiencies Too

    NASHVILLE, TN. JUNE 22, 2020 Many healthcare organizations delayed their EHR implementations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Carle Foundation Hospital, a large integrated health system based in Champaign, Illinois, and Pivot Point Consulting worked together to rapidly “pivot” plans at the 11th hour – a pivot that not only resulted in a successful go-live on April 1, but also cost savings and virtual efficiencies.

    As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, Carle was underway with an Epic EHR implementation including a recently acquired community hospital and 6 affiliated multi-specialty clinics. It was critical for Carle to have this newly acquired hospital on the same EHR while balancing the safety of staff and patients.

    Carle worked with their partner, Pivot Point Consulting, to rapidly shift all class-room training to remote / Web-ex based sessions, virtualize the 24 X 7 “Command Centers” hub staffed by Carle and Pivot Point Consulting EHR experts and create a hybrid “At the Elbow” support model that fit hospital resource needs and provided remote support, where appropriate.

    David Gorrell, Director Project Management Office, says, “Pivot Point Consulting has been a great partner for us in our large IT initiatives and has provided quality IT resources to temporarily augment our staff and fill in where needed. Not only do the folks they provide have the skills and expertise, they do quality work. We really just view them as an extension of our internal team and true partners.”

    The remote support model resulted in the closing of the Command Center one week early and the virtualization of training and go-live support resulted in approximately $65K in savings on travel expenses. Additionally, the experiences gained in the remote support model paved the way for similar virtual training and go-live activities at Carle moving forward.

    After the success of the of the go-live, Dr. Charles Dennis, Chief Medical Officer at Carle shared his thoughts with the Carle organization: “I’ve been involved with many EHR go-lives and the plans and efforts that were developed for the Carle Regional Memorial Hospital (CRMH) go-live to maintain full support during the COVID-19 pandemic was extremely impressive and will strengthen our Carle system during these challenging times.”

    Joe Clemons, Pivot Point Consulting’s Director ERP Practice and Advisory who is serving as a consultant project/engagement manager for Carle shared that “strong engagement management, close collaboration, and partnership with the client was critical to the high stakes, successful go-live at Carle given the rapidly evolving environment.”

    Pivot Point Consulting continues to invest in the quality it’s known for as #1 Best in KLAS 2020: Overall IT Services Firm by expanding its engagement management team to include another experienced EHR implementation specialist, Joe Studer. Studer brings deep experience after leading many full life-cycle, complex, EHR implementations at prominent institutions such as Community Medical Centers in Fresno, Loma Linda Medical Center and Mayo Clinic.

    To hear how the team completed a successful virtual Epic EHR go-live and realized cost savings and virtual efficiencies too, check out this podcast.

    About Carle
    Carle combines clinical care, health insurance, research and academics in a way that solves real-world problems today. Supported by a deep philanthropic spirit with an eye toward the future, we’re dedicated to doing what it takes to make life better for as many as possible.

    Our mission is to serve people through high-quality care, medical research and education. Based in Urbana, Ill., The Carle Foundation is a vertically integrated health system with more than 7,000 employees in its hospitals, physician group, health plan and associated healthcare businesses including the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, the world’s first engineering-based college medicine.

    About Pivot Point Consulting
    Pivot Point Consulting, 2020 Best in KLAS: Overall IT Services Firm, enables healthcare organizations to realize the most value from their technology and data through our Advisory, Implementation, Optimization, Managed Services and Talent Solutions. We work with provider and payer organizations and have 450+ employees serving over 100 clients across the U.S. Pivot Point Consulting has earned many industry and workplace quality awards including:

    Best in KLAS: Overall IT Services Firm (2020) , Top Three Best in KLAS for HIT Implementation and Support (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019) , Highest Rated Vendor in KLAS Implementation Services in the Select Category (2017) , #1 in KLAS for Epic Consulting in the Select Category (2016) , #9 in Modern Healthcare’s Best Places to Work (2016)

    Practices: Epic®, Community Connect®, Cerner®, Siemens®, Allscripts®, MEDITECH®, McKesson®, Centricity®, eClinicalWorks®, NextGen® CPSI®, MEDHOST®, athenahealth®, Greenway®, Workday®, Lawson/Infor®, Peoplesoft®, SAP®, Kronos® and Facets®.

    For more information, visit us atpivotpointconsulting.com

    Emily Brock

    Marketing Specialist

    Cell: 205.586.1366

    [email protected] 

    2020 Best in KLAS: Overall IT Services Firm

     

    Posted 6.22.2020

  • CHIME Innovation’s InnoCast to Showcase Successful Startup-Provider Partnerships

    ANN ARBOR, MI, June 22, 2020 – It’s one thing to have a creative solution that in theory solves a gnawing problem in healthcare and another to have a real-world customer who can vouch for that innovation’s value. This month the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) will kick off InnoCast, a new program that highlights partnerships between startups and healthcare organizations that have worked together to solve real problems in healthcare.
     
    “Innovation in a vacuum is rarely, if ever, a success,” said Jonathan Fritz, JD, CHIME’s chief innovation officer. “Healthcare is especially challenging, with regulatory, patient safety and other issues that need to be addressed. Having a strong partnership that allows an entrepreneur and a digital healthcare executive to test, iterate and retest a solution in a real-world healthcare setting helps to quickly work out any problems and ensure the solution truly delivers customer value.”
     
    CHIME Innovation will host InnoCast, which will hold its first session at 10 a.m. ET June 24. The session will highlight a partnership between UT Health Austin and Sentinel Healthcare focusing on contact tracing and home monitoring. Speakers include:
    • Aaron Miri, CIO at UT Health Austin
    • Liz Jacobs, MD, associate chair of research in the Department of Medicine at Dell Medical School
    • Nirav Shah, MD, CEO and founder of Sentinel Healthcare
    Registration is free and open to the public. The session will be followed by a Q&A for members of CHIME, CHIME International and any CHIME associations. The members-only Q&A will include Darlene Bhavnani, Ph.D., UT Health Austin’s infectious disease epidemiologist and global health specialist, and Harris Health CIO David Chou as moderator.
     
    To register, go here. For more information about InnoCast, go here. Startup executives who would like to share their story of a successful partnership with a provider are welcome to contact Fritz at [email protected].
     
    Editor’s note: The media are welcome to attend the June 24 session. No special registration is required.
     
    About CHIME
    The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers (CIOs), chief medical information officers (CMIOs), chief nursing information officers (CNIOs), chief innovation officers (CIOs), chief digital officers (CDOs) and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 3,200 members in 56 countries and over 150 healthcare IT business partners and professional services firms, CHIME provides a highly interactive, trusted environment enabling senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate, exchange best practices, address professional development needs and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and care in the communities they serve. For more information, please visit chimecentral.org.
     
    Contact
    Candace Stuart
    Director of Communications and Public Relations, CHIME
    734.665.0000
    Posted 6.22.2020

  • Censinet Announces Free Program to Help Healthcare ProvidersQuickly Assess Risks with New Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Vendors

    New PPE Third-Party Risk Assessment Program Allows Healthcare Organizations to Quickly and Securely Assess and On-Board PPE Vendors

    Boston – June 18, 2020 – Censinet, the leading collaborative risk network for healthcare providers, today announced a new free program that will enable healthcare providers to quickly assess the security risks of new personal protective equipment (PPE) vendors. Any healthcare provider can now request access to the Censinet Third-Party Vendor Risk Management Network of more than 5,000 healthcare suppliers and their 7,000+ products, which enables one-click risk assessments capabilities and measures the risk of vendors in the PPE supply chain.

    On March 27, the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a warning about the increase in potential fraud of COVID-19-related medical equipment, urging healthcare providers to “exercise due diligence and appropriate caution when dealing with any vendors with whom they have never worked and/or of which they’ve never heard, and when relying on unidentified third-party brokers in the supply chain.” The new program from Censinet will help providers detect fraudulent vendors while streamlining the onboarding of legitimate PPE vendors. As a result, healthcare providers will be able to more quickly and safely integrate qualified vendors into their third-party ecosystem in order to expedite the delivery of critical protective equipment.

    “During a global pandemic, every minute spent conducting cumbersome administrative processes like manually researching vendor security risk is a minute taken away from delivering care or protecting healthcare workers on the front lines,” said Ed Gaudet, founder and CEO of Censinet. “Even worse, threat actors have quickly mobilized to take advantage of gaps in the PPE supply chain. We want healthcare providers to devote all of their time and resources to protecting their patients and their employees, which is why we’re offering the free use of the Censinet Platform to assess potential PPE vendors for risk and to simplify the onboarding process for legitimate vendors.”

    Censinet is working with vendors new to the PPE supply chain, and others serving expanded needs related to the global pandemic, to ensure their risk assessments are available in advance. Once included, those vendors’ risk assessments will become part of the Censinet Digital Vendor Catalog™ which includes risk assessments on more than 5,000 healthcare suppliers of over 7,000 products, allowing healthcare providers to easily access the information they need to make decisions based on accurate, real-time data with one click. Brand new vendor risk assessments are typically completed in five days or less. Previously established NIOSH-approved manufacturers of N95 masks are already in the digital catalog. A list of hundreds of PPE and pandemic-related specialty vendors will be shared with healthcare organizations who start using the Censinet platform, as a resource to quickly find alternative supply chain options.

    Censinet has curated a new standardized questionnaire designed to determine the authentic nature of PPE that is now available to any healthcare organization (HCO) that wants to safeguard their purchases as being from legitimate suppliers. Additionally, a corrective action plan for remediation can be automatically generated for HCOs evaluating any vendor whose questionnaire responses indicate a risky situation. As a result, healthcare organizations do not need to devote critical time and resources to developing the risk criteria they will measure when evaluating unfamiliar vendors. This special open access license for the Censinet Platform will also allow providers to add new vendors to the Censinet vendor catalog and initiate a risk assessment of their products, and to assess new products from established vendors.

    Qualified healthcare organizations interested in learning more or utilizing the PPE risk assessment program can visit: https://www.censinet.com/PPE

    About Censinet

    Censinet provides the first and only third-party risk management platform built by and for healthcare providers to manage the threats to patient care that exist within an expanding ecosystem of vendors. With its unique Censinet One-click Assessment™ capabilities and Digital Vendor Catalog, the Censinet Platform reduces the time to assess vendor risk from weeks to seconds, while automating inefficient workflows and providing continuous real-time insights into the changing risk profile of each vendor. Censinet is based in Boston, MA and can be found at https://www.censinet.com/

     

    Contact:

    Paul Garcia

    Censinet

    (857)449-7640

    [email protected]

     

    ###

    Posted 6.19.2020

  • DrFirst and MARQUIS Med Rec Collaborative Partnering to Help End Error-Prone Medication Reconciliation Processes

    Using best practices when taking medication history with DrFirst’s MedHx reduces discrepancies and adverse drug events

    ROCKVILLE, Md. and BOSTON, June 18, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Adverse drug events (ADEs) caused by medication discrepancies are estimated to affect as many as 40% of hospitalized patients and up to 17% of patients in the 30 days following discharge and yet are largely underreported in all care settings. To tackle this challenge head-on, DrFirst and the Society for Hospital Medicine’s MARQUIS Med Rec Collaborative have formed a new partnership that is helping hospitals improve the quality of their medication reconciliation process, one of the most important steps to improving medication safety during transitions in care.

    DrFirst is a pioneer in technology, support, and services that connect people at touchpoints of patient care. Its products are used by more than 1,400 hospitals and nearly half of the electronic health record (EHRs) systems in the U.S. and Canada. The MARQUIS Med Rec Collaborative is a quality initiative of the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM), originally designed and evaluated as part of two studies funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

    Through the partnership, DrFirst will provide hospitals and ambulatory clinicians that use its MedHx solution with evidence-based tools to prescribe, document, and reconcile medications accurately and reduce ADEs. MedHx, the healthcare industry’s broadest source of medication history data available,  yields faster, more accurate medication reconciliation.

    Building on insights gained from the 2018 Multi-Center Medication Reconciliation Quality Improvement Study (MARQUIS), which demonstrated a consistent 9% reduction in medication history discrepancies per month, DrFirst will customize the Collaborative’s current toolkit. Specifically, DrFirst will illustrate how its MedHx solution can be combined with best practices in medication history-taking to achieve breakthrough reductions in medication discrepancies. After the customized toolkit is distributed and implemented, the MARQUIS Collaborative will take a cohort of DrFirst hospital clients through a 14-month quality improvement program. 

    “On average, there are as many as three medication reconciliation errors per hospital patient, often resulting in ADEs,” said Jeffrey Schnipper, MD, MPH, and MARQUIS principal investigator. “Nowhere else in healthcare do we tolerate error rates this high. We can’t advance further in medication safety until we get the medication history right. The MARQUIS Collaborative med rec toolkits are an excellent step in the right direction to create a single source of truth for patients’ medications.”

    SHM’s MARQUIS Med Rec Collaborative, which measures “unintentional medication discrepancies per patient” for quality improvement purposes, is endorsed by the National Quality Forum (NQF) and is the official Leapfrog measure for medication reconciliation. The Collaborative is helping hospitals nationwide reduce unintentional medication discrepancies that lead to adverse drug events and patient harm. Participating hospitals identify medication reconciliation process gaps, develop and implement better ways to prescribe and document medications, and measure improvement over time.

    “It’s critically important that clinicians have accurate and usable medication histories to help protect patients from dangerous ADEs and save time tracking down and typing in information, which can introduce errors,” said G. Cameron Deemer, president of DrFirst. “As part of our long-standing promise to help improve patient safety through technology, we are committed to working with MARQUIS to help clinicians follow best practices that improve their medication reconciliation quality.”

    Medication reconciliation is a critical patient safety process. When done well, it significantly lessens the risk of adverse drug events. The process is recommended every time a patient has a transition of care, such as being admitted or discharged from a hospital. Accurate medication reconciliation is a National Patient Safety Goal of The Joint Commission.

    DrFirst’s MedHx includes patented SmartSig artificial intelligence (AI) that improves the quality of prescription information and takes away manual errors when it is imported into EHRs used by hospitals and physician practices. SmartSig AI solves a long-standing problem concerning patients’ medication histories in EHRs: inferring or converting “free text” in prescribing directions (called sigs) into the nomenclature and data fields a hospital or ambulatory care center EHR uses. MedHx is foundational to DrFirst’s Med Rec Excellence program, which provides the most comprehensive, clean, and consumable medication history data available in healthcare.

    About SHM

    Representing the fastest-growing specialty in modern healthcare, the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) is the leading medical society for hospitalists and their patients. To learn more, visit hospitalmedicine.org.

    About DrFirst

    Since 2000, DrFirst has pioneered healthcare technology solutions and consulting services that securely connect people at touchpoints of care to improve patient outcomes. We create unconventional solutions that solve care collaboration, medication management, price transparency, and adherence challenges faced in healthcare. We unite the Healthiverse—the interconnected healthcare universe—by providing our clients with real-time access to the information they need, exactly when and how they need it, so patients get the best care possible. DrFirst solutions are used by nearly 300,000 healthcare professionals, including more than 100,000 prescribers, nearly half of the EHRs in the U.S., and more than 1,400 hospitals in the U.S. and Canada. To learn more, visit DrFirst.com or @DrFirst.

    DrFirst Media Contact
    Sofia Kosmetatos
    Amendola Communications
    646-431-8423
    [email protected]

    SOURCE DrFirst

    Related Links

    https://drfirst.com

    Posted 6.18.2020
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