[medinformatics] Boston EDs Test Prescription Data Tool

[Healthcare Informatics News]

Emergency-room doctors and nurses in several Massachusetts hospitals are beginning to use a new
electronic tool to access patients’ prescription information from insurance claims before treatment in an effort to
improve safety and quality of care. From InformationWeek:


Over the next year, three Boston-area hospitals will test MedsInfo-ED with the goal of eventually expanding the
program to additional emergency-room and other types of doctors. “This is a proof of concept,” says Elliot Stone, CEO
of Massachusetts Health Data Consortium, a nonprofit coalition of private
and public health-care organizations in the state.

MedsInfo-ED allows emergency-room staff to access electronically prescription data of patients who have had
prescriptions filled and paid for by a number of the region’s largest health insurers and plans, including Blue Cross
Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Harvard-Pilgrim, Tufts, Massachusetts’ Medicaid program, and the state’s employee and
retirement health insurer, Group Insurance Commission. Giving emergency-room nurses and doctors access to
prescription-claim information is important, because patients’ injuries and illnesses in many cases can prevent them
from communicating with emergency-room nurses and doctors, and family members may not have health information or be
available to provide it, says Dr. Robert Mandel, VP of eHealth at
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.

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