Vermont will use grant to drive e-prescribing
By Mary Mosquera
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The Vermont Information Technology Leaders Inc. (VITL) said it will use a $1 million federal grant to provide incentives to Vermont physicians to use electronic prescribing to improve healthcare in the state.
The Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) awarded $1 million to the Vermont non-profit to supply technical assistance in addition to the financial incentives to physicians and independent retail pharmacies to join the Surescripts national e-prescription network, VITL said in an announcement Oct. 19. HRSA made the award in September.
Electronic prescribing is a key component of any electronic health record, and the easiest process for physicians to automate as a first step toward fully electronic patient records, said Dr. David Cochran, VITL’s president and chief executive officer.
VITL is the state-funded provider of health IT infrastructure for Vermont's Blueprint for Health, an effort by the Vermont Department of Health to build a statewide chronic care information system. It is composed of providers, payers, employers, patients, and state agencies in Vermont.
"Electronic prescribing improves patient care, as prescribers have instant access to the patient's medication history and allergy list no matter where they are," Cochran said. “It is also a convenience that physicians can offer their patients, as the patient no longer has to carry a paper prescription to the pharmacy and prescriptions sent electronically are often ready when the patient arrives,” he said.
Incentives already exist for physicians to prescribe electronically, Cochran said. Physicians can qualify for a two percent bonus from Medicare for using e-prescribing
If a physician is not e-prescribing by 2012, Medicare will begin reducing its payments to the physician.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), a member of the Senate Appropriation Committee, assisted in securing the funds for Vermont, the organization said. Electronic prescribing is an important step toward achieving the administration’s goal of computerizing medical records within five years, he said.
“We expect that once physicians see how easy it is to use electronic prescribing, they'll want to take additional steps toward a full electronic medical record,” Leahy said.
In addition to e-prescribing incentives, VITL will use a portion of the HRSA grant to help Vermont hospitals license software to accept lab orders electronically from physicians. The grant will expand the number of hospitals that VITL connects to the Vermont Health Information Exchange to share data with providers, Cochran said.
