FAQs for Hospitals
What is Surescripts Prescription History for Hospitals
Service?
What are the benefits of Surescripts Prescription History
for Hospitals Service?
What is Medication Reconciliation?
What steps does Surescripts take to ensure patient
privacy and security?
What Does a Patient Medication Report Sample Look
Like?
What is Surescripts Prescription History for Hospitals
Service?
In 2003 RxHub (now Surescripts) created RxHub MEDS, leveraging the
expertise in e-prescribing to bring a patient’s pharmacy claims history
to the point of an acute care admission. RxHub’s merger with Surescripts
allows this service to expand and potentially include prescription dispensing
data from community pharmacies.
Patient prescription claims history information is an accurate and longitudinal
record of how a patient acquires prescriptions through their drug benefit. The
patient prescription claims history information returned to the Surescripts
certified technology applications include the following data components:
Drug name
Dose
Quantity dispensed
Days supply
Dispensing pharmacy and phone number
Prescribing physician.
The patient prescription claims history information represents a selected
timeframe of prescriptions purchased utilizing the patient’s active pharmacy
benefit(s). Some patients may have multiple active coverage. All coverage
with prescription histories from participating payers will be included in
the response back to the authorized requestor. Because the information is
based on claims data, it can help signal whether or not a patient is adhering
to their chronic medication regimen. For example, if a patient presents to
the emergency room in heart failure, the patient’s prescription claims
history information can inform the treating clinician as to how often the
patient is purchasing their heart failure medication. If the 30 day supply
is only being filled every 60 days, there may be a compliance issue,
which could play into the reason for the emergency room visit.
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What are the benefits of Surescripts Prescription History Service for Hospitals?
Benefits: Surescripts Prescription History for Hospitals service provides a purchasing
history of prescription drugs that was covered by the patient’s pharmacy benefit.
This data along with a certified software application’s DUR capabilities can provide
the following benefits:
Improve patient safety
Avoid drug duplication
Reduce adverse drug events
Monitor patient adherence to treatment program
Increase potential to reduce healthcare costs
The clinician can use this information as a starting point to obtain a complete prescription
history from a patient and to determine adherence to medication regimen. It will also provide
a description of the patient’s purchasing history of prescription drugs that fall under their
pharmacy benefit.
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What is Medication Reconciliation?
Patient medication claims history information also serves as a foundation
for the initiation of the medication reconciliation process at an acute
care admission to the ER or hospital. It gives the clinician a “head start”
on the process. First and foremost, the clinician needs to determine that
the prescription history is, in fact, for the patient they are interviewing.
Additionally, OTC medications, herbal drugs, vitamins and prescriptions the
patient may have paid cash for need to be added to the list during the
medication reconciliation process.
During a normal hospital admission, multiple clinicians often take a prescription history – making it an expensive and time-consuming manual process. A nurse, pharmacist, resident, attending physician hospitalist or primary care physician may each perform this task, all with varying results. The “transition” that is often the most difficult is the one that takes place at the hospital or emergency room (ER) admission. It is at this point when a clinician must rely on the patient, a relative or significant other, or a “brown bag of medications” to try to establish the baseline prescription history list. This transition is fraught with potential errors. Patients may or may not be coherent at the time of admission, they rarely remember the names of their drugs let alone bring them, and secondary parties are often unreliable unless they are intimately involved with the patient’s day to day care. Even if the patient brings their medications, they must be sorted through, verified and documented.
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What steps does Surescripts take to ensure patient
privacy and security?
During the admission process, patient consent and HIPAA notification are standard processes, especially for purposes of treatment, healthcare operations, or payment. All queries and responses are made automatically through secured system to system communications. The query is made during the admission process and is not apparent to the requestor. The response is returned to a patient record in a clinical setting and role based security determines which personnel have access to the information. Surescripts also contractually requires all certified software vendors to follow local, state and national level privacy and security requirements.
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What Does a Patient
Medication Report Sample Look
Like?
A clinical review of a report from the Surescripts Prescription History for Hospitals
service may identify the following:
Adherence to Prescribed Drug Treatment
Previous Therapeutic Interventions
Adverse Drug Reactions
Drug Interactions
Drug Duplications
Dosage Modifications
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