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AMGA advocates for E-Prescribing at Capitol
Hill briefing
Newswise — Today, AMGA Board Director Andrew
S. Warner, M.D., participated in a Capitol
Hill news briefing on the subject of
electronic prescribing. Dr. Warner is the
chairman of the Gastroenterology Department
at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington,
Massachusetts. Other speakers included
Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Debbie Stabenow
(D-MI), and John Ensign (R-NV) and former
Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
The group discussed steps the Federal
government can take to stimulate physician
adoption of e-prescribing. Dr. Warner
outlined AMGA’s positions on this issue and
provided remarks on the adoption of
e-prescribing, particularly on the potential
it has to improve patient care and generate
significant savings.
AMGA supports adoption of e-prescribing
because it has the potential to improve
patient care and generate significant
savings. AMGA members are leaders in
implementation of health information
technology infrastructure, with 84 percent
reporting some form of its use, many with
full electronic medical records capability,
which includes widespread use of
e-prescribing.
However,
for most physicians, the business case for
e-prescribing has not been compelling, and
as a consequence, e-prescribing has not been
widely adopted.
“With proper alignment of incentives in
Medicare and with the reasonable passage of
time, the Federal government could stimulate
broad growth in the application of
e-prescribing,” commented Donald W. Fisher,
AMGA’s president and CEO, elaborating on Dr.
Warner’s statements.
“AMGA advocates for payments for all who
already use or who adopt e-prescribing
systems. Broader adoption in Medicare could
be accomplished by offering annual
incentives for participating physicians
equal to 1 percent of their allowed Medicare
charges.”
E-prescribing is a system that enables
prescribing clinicians to deliver
prescriptions via computer immediately from
the point of care directly to the patient’s
pharmacy of choice. In addition to this
efficient and accurate prescription delivery
function, e-prescribing improves patient
safety through warnings to the prescribing
clinician about adverse drug interactions,
allergies, and previous medication history.
E-prescribing systems can also provide
information on insurance eligibility status,
prescription fill status notification, and
prescription renewal capability, all of
which can save time and money for everyone
involved in the transaction.
In its report entitled “Preventing
Medication Errors” (July 2006), the
Institute of Medicine (IOM) stated that
e-prescribing has the potential to
dramatically reduce the numbers of
preventable medication errors that occur
each year that can result in unnecessary
hospitalizations, or even death, and
recommended nationwide adoption by 2010.
Despite clear safety and cost advantages,
less than 30,000 of the more than 900,000
prescribers in the United States use full
e-prescribing systems and therefore do not
reap the attendant advantages.
AMGA is an association that represents
medical groups, including some of the
nation’s largest, most prestigious medical
practices, independent practice
associations, and integrated healthcare
delivery systems.
AMGA advocates for multispecialty medical
groups and other organized systems of care
and for the patients served by these systems
by continuously striving to improve patient
care through innovation, information
sharing, benchmarking, the creation of sound
public policy, and leadership development.
The members of AMGA deliver health care to
more than 50 million patients in 42 states.
Headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, AMGA
is the strategic partner for medical groups,
providing a comprehensive package of
benefits, including political advocacy,
educational and networking programs,
publications, benchmarking data services,
and financial and operations assistance.
www.amga.org.
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