T

he processing of prescription drug orders for long-term care residents can be a tangled web—a complicated and inefficient system forcing facility staff, physicians, and pharmacists to begin processing an order before they are certain it is safe for the resident and/or will be paid. Following receipt of a grant from the American Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), however, Achieve Healthcare Technologies^TM appears on its way to streamlining the process.
       Achieve, a leading provider of software systems for the long-term care industry, was recently awarded $1,149,000 from AHRQ to pilot an e-prescribing software program. The only long-term care organization to receive an award out of the applicants, Achieve will use its web-based Achieve Matrix software to test electronic communication between long-term care facilities, pharmacies, and physicians. Chief among the benefits of an e-prescribing system, says Mike Bordelon, Achieve’s president of research and development, is efficiency.
       “The system will tell the doctor or nurse, in real time, once the order is placed, whether it will be paid for,” says Bordelon. “It will help eliminate inefficiency and improve resident well being by getting the caregiver back onto the floor.”
       Among the other benefits of the technology is its automated, barcode-driven prescription refill request function as well as its ability to provide prior authorization. (The latter is timely in light of changes brought by Medicare Part D, as half of the drugs on plan formularies require prior authorization.) The e-prescribing system aims to streamline prior authorization and minimize errors.
       “When we’re pushing electronic data around, there’s much fewer opportunities for errors to be introduced due to manual data entry, reducing medication errors and delays and increasing responsiveness,” says Bordelon.
       The 12-month study began January 1, 2006 and will include 3 phases of implementation. Baseline studies for comparison are under way. Upon completion of the pilot, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will receive a comprehensive report on the findings.
       “The goal of the study is to test these standards in action, using a live environment to verify that they are applicable,” says Bordelon. “We are bringing new technology that long-term care has never seen before.
       In order to successfully pilot this program, Achieve partnered with a number of healthcare organizations, including RNA Health Information Systems, a leading supplier of computer software applications, and RxHub, a nationwide prescription information exchange network. Benedictine Health Systems, an Achieve customer, provided 2 of its facilities for the study. To provide a comparison for the study, the pilot will also include 2 facilities using the traditional, paper-based prescribing methods.
       “The first goal is to devise a system to ensure that a prescription drug order is both a safe order and one that will be paid,” says Bordelon. “Beyond that, we will look for logical things to add to the scope of the project to show the industry what e-prescribing can look like.”

       For more information on the e-prescribing software program, write to Jodie Daubert at Jodie.Daubert@AchieveHealthcare.com or visit http://www.AchieveHealthcare.com.