Published: December 05, 2007
AMGA Advocates for E-Prescribing at Capital 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.
Source: American Medical Group Association (AMGA)
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