An executive order signed May 2 by Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano should help keep the state in the top echelon of an increasing number of states that are pushing e-prescribing as a priority for their e-health programs.
Recognized at an award ceremony held in Washington D.C. in March, Arizona ranked eighth among all states in 2007 for its rate of adopting e-prescribing. However, less than 3 percent of Arizona health care providers use any form of e-prescribing.
In signing her order, Napolitano cited patient safety and cost savings as the main reasons for providers to adopt e-prescribing, and said it would ensure that Arizona remains “on the cutting-edge of health care technology.”
Napolitano created the Arizona Health-e Connection in 2005 to implement a statewide e-health information system, and the state was awarded a $12 million federal grant last year to expand that work.
The initial goal was to have the majority of state health providers using electronic health records by 2010, the same year the Institute of Medicine has called for all prescriptions in the United States to be delivered and received electronically.
Napolitano’s order requires various Arizona agencies to work with the Health-e Connection and its EAzRx initiative to accelerate the adoption of e-prescribing. It also calls for the state’s Government Information Technology Agency to identify special challenges that many Arizona rural communities must overcome to adopt e-prescribing.
In issuing her order, Napolitano joins a number of other state governors who have made similar proclamations in what appears to be a growing race to eliminate paper prescriptions across the country. In September 2007, e-prescribing became legal in all 50 states when Alaska changed its rules to allow it.
Government Health IT presents Rick Friedman, director of the division of state systems for the Center for Medicaid and State Operations with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in this recent eSeminar regarding how the federal Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services is partnering with state Medicaid and health and human services officials to bring Medicaid into the digital age. Paul McCloskey, Government Health IT editor, moderates.
