Meaningful Use out!

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF HEALTH-SYSTEM PHARMACISTS

Office of Secretary of HOUSE OF DELEGATES

June 16, 2009

Rosemont, Illinois

INTRODUCED BY: John Poikonen, Roy Guharoy, Dennis Tribble

Name:  John Poikonen and Roy Guharoy, Delegates from Massachusetts and Dennis Tribble Delegate from Section on Pharmacy Informatics and Technology

SUBJECT:  Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records

MOTION:  ASHP should actively advocate directly to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to include the following elements of “Meaningful Use” focused on the medication use process:

Interoperability of medication orders and prescriptions

Communication of orders and electronic prescriptions must be demonstrated to be functional and semantically interoperable with pharmacy information systems.  A common medication vocabulary must be mandated to promote the semantic interoperability of medication use across the continuum of care.  This will be essential for comparative research and for communicating medication information. 

Medication decision support and continuous improvement

Medication decision support must include allergy, drug interaction, duplicate therapy, and dose-range checking as a minimum.  Such a decision-support service must include an ongoing, continuous improvement process to attune the decision-support service to the needs of the providers.

Quality Reporting

The ability to report and quantify improved patient safety, quality outcomes, and cost reductions in the medication use process particularly in nationally endorsed quality measures, antimicrobial and adverse drug event surveillance is essential.

BACKGROUND:

Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, hospitals and physician practices beginning in 2011 are eligible for incentive payments by demonstrating “meaningful use of health information technology.”   $20 Billion has been allocated for hospitals and physician adoption.

To be eligible for the payments, hospitals must use the technology in a meaningful manner; to exchange electronic health information to improve the quality of care; and, submit clinical quality measures – and other measures – as selected by the Secretary of Health & Human Services (HHS). 

ASHP has repeatedly called for an improved and standardized drug nomenclature, as recently as the 2009 House of Delegates.

SUGGESTED OUTCOME:

That ASHP dedicate resources of the Section of Pharmacy Informatics and Technology and Government Affairs to monitor and insure that the priorities of the medication use process is addressed in the definition of meaningful use.