Electronic Prescribing for Controlled Substances Set to Take Off

This article explains the complexities that makes it so hard to implement electronic prescribing for controlled substances (EPCS), summarizes the intended impacts of the bills, and introduces Imprivata digital identity technology, which has been used in health care for such purposes for many years. Calling the Cops Health care advocates and reformers can show off plenty of war stories and wounds just from dealing with regulations and bureaucracies in health care. When it comes to controlled substances, toss in the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for extra suspense. State governments are also roped in thanks to their Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs). Drug abuse is clearly a leading social problem, and prescriptions notoriously play a large part. Opiate pain killers are not the only culprits: Medications for ADHD and other conditions can also be abused. I estimate more than 550 medications on the DEA’s controlled substance list. The mechanisms of abuse, potential or alleged, are also multi-faceted: advertising that minimized drugs’ dangers, deliberate pill mills, doctor shopping (sometimes across state lines to avoid triggering detection), and doctors who inadvertently overprescribe because they’re poorly educated or too busy to investigate more appropriate treatments. Hence the multitude of federal and state oversight mechanisms to prevent abuse. Dr. Sean Kelly, chief medical officer and SVP of customer strategy for healthcare at Imprivat...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Clinical Health IT Company Healthcare IT Interoperability Regulations American Telemedicine Association ATA Colin Banas Controlled Substrances DEA DrFirst Electronic Prescribing Electronic Prescribing of Controlled Substances EPC Source Type: blogs