Deaconess Health System announced it has signed an agreement with a company that will integrate prescription drug monitoring into electronic health records.
The pact between Deaconess and Appriss Health is aimed at preventing misuse of prescription drugs and opioids, a growing problem locally and nationwide.
According to Deaconess and Appriss Health, health providers with Deaconess will now be able to access a patient’s prescription history within their electronic records via an Appriss-created program. Physicians and pharmacists previously needed to log into a separate website called INSPECT to retrieve a patient’s controlled substance dispensations from the state database, and then cross-reference that data with a patient’s health information, in what was a time-consuming process.
Indiana Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch and Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke joinedleaders of the two companies in announcing the partnership, which officials said is the first of its kind in the state.
“In the most recent statistics from the Indiana State Department of Health, we, unfortunately, saw opioid related deaths increase by 3.5 percent per year from 2011-2015. In addition, we saw a 60 percent increase in nonfatal ER visits from opioid overdose at the same time,” Crouch said in a news release. “This resource, putting INSPECT data directly in the hands of doctors making critical prescribing decisions, will save lives and support the State of Indiana in the fight against prescription drug and opioid abuse.”
“At Deaconess, we are committed to the prevention of prescription drug misuse and abuse in our patient population,” said Dr. Gina Huhnke, Director Medical Affairs and Emergency Medicine at Deaconess. “Integrating INSPECT information into daily workflow ensures prescribers at Deaconess will more often, and more easily, access this valuable prescription monitoring data to make better informed clinical decisions to better ensure patient safety. We look forward to working with the State of Indiana and Appriss Health on these important efforts.”
“Deaconess has taken a major step towards ensuring the best standard of care for its patients,” said Rob Cohen, President, Appriss Health. “We applaud them for taking a proactive approach to becoming the first health system in Indiana to deploy clinical workflow integration of PDMP data and clinical decision support solutions for substance use disorder directly within their EHR.”
Deaconess said it is also piloting an Appriss Health program which empowers drug prescribers and dispensers to identify patients whomay be at risk for prescription drug addiction, overdose and death.
The program equips clinicians and care teams with the advanced analytics, tools and technology they need to help those patients, according to Deaconess.