Using innovative technology to combat opioid abuse
CHA is one of the first health systems in Mass. to use e-prescribing technology for controlled substances.
This enables our providers to electronically send medications directly to the pharmacy and minimizes the risks of fraud and drug diversion associated with paper-based prescriptions. Art Ream, CHA’s director of IT applications and chief information officer, has been invited to speak at conferences across the country about this innovation, and he's also discussed it with several news outlets.
Art recently detailed the e-prescribing technology with Health Leaders. It has already saved the 700+ physicians at CHA hundreds of hours by reducing printing paper prescriptions for controlled substances. In its place is a system that requires physicians to enter a username and password, then a sequence of numbers, which refreshes every 30 seconds.
Before rolling out the application, CHA physicians found themselves having to drive across town to another clinic to sign prescriptions, printed on a secured printer, for maintenance doses of controlled substances. Signing these prescriptions can now be entered by physicians at any one of CHA’s workstations. See this Boston Globe story for more details on this initiative.
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