AHRQ’s Digital Healthcare Research: Annual Report describes the study “Improving Medication Safety with Accurate e-Prescribing Tool” to improve medication safety was researched at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr. Michelle Anne Chui, PharmD., Ph.D, Professor and Director of the Sonderegger Research Center for Improved Medication Use at the University of Wisconsin-Madison was the Principal Investigator for the research.
The research study describes how the e-prescribing tool called CancelRx was developed and when used is able to produces more up-to-date-information and also enhance security to help medical professionals, patients, and pharmacies.
The problem is that when providers discontinue patients’ medication in EHRs, clinic staff must manually notify the prescribing pharmacies. Busy staffs often overlook this notification step so the result is that medications may still remain on a pharmacy’s dispensing profile.
Dr. Michelle Chui at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recognized that this miscommunication may cause a variety of issues, including confusion by the patient of potential adverse drug events.
With a pharmacy background and years of research on reducing medication discrepancies. Dr. Chui explored existing technologies that can facilitate communication between providers and pharmacists and yield positive results.
Dr. Chui’s team at the university, received $285,897 from AHRQ to proceed with the project titled “CancelRx: A Health IT Tool to Decrease Medication Discrepancies in the Outpatient Setting.”
CancelRx is a e-prescribing tool that electronically communicates medication discontinuation orders between EHRs and pharmacies. The technology allows pharmacists to have the most up-to-date prescription information and ensures that the patient’s medication list in a pharmacist’s system is accurate.
Through a direct notification, CancelRx prompts a patient’s pharmacy when a provider discontinues a patient’s prescription. Dr. Chui recognizes that this tool will not only reduce adverse drug events, but also ensure medical professionals that they have access to timely data for their patients.
The research team found an immediate and significant increase in successful medication cancellations after CancelRx was implemented. This raised the rate of proper discontinuations from 34 percent to 93 percent.
Dr. Chui feels this tool that can have significant impact in reducing medication discrepancies, enhancing patient safety, and also provide a sense of security to prescribing providers and pharmacists on knowing their patients’ up-to-date medication information is available.
Go to https://www.digital.ahrq.gov for information on AHRQ’s projects related to digital healthcare.
For more information on Dr. Michelle Chui, go to https://ahrq.gov/funding/grantee-profiles/grtprofile-chui-html