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Anthem National Accounts and General Motors Announce E-Prescribing Pilot


January 2007
 Filed under: GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATE Car News | GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATE Headlines

Ohio Pilot Seeks to Pave the Way to Reduce Medical Errors and Improve Patient Safety Nationwide

DAYTON, Ohio, Jan. 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Anthem National Accounts announced today its venture with General Motors on an electronic prescribing pilot that includes physicians and health information technology providers to help reduce medication errors and simplify the prescribing process. The pilot, which will involve 100 physicians, will benefit thousands of patients in two Ohio communities regardless of their health plan affiliation.

Specifically, the ePrescribing pilot will equip participating physicians in Dayton and Warren/Youngstown with computer hardware and software that provides instant access to current health plan formularies and patient medication history available through claims data. This will allow the physicians to send prescriptions electronically to both retail and mail-order pharmacies instantaneously.
"Electronic prescribing has been proven to reduce errors, help prevent harmful drug interactions and streamline prescribing processes for physicians and patients," said Sam Nussbaum, M.D., executive vice president and chief medical officer. "Unfortunately, this technology is underutilized. Our ePrescribing pilot is designed to encourage physician adoption of this potentially life-saving and time-saving technology."

Currently, less than 22 percent of physicians nationwide use the basic capabilities of electronic prescribing, according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). CMS estimates that the use of such technology could eliminate as many as two million harmful drug events each year. Other electronic prescribing pilots have demonstrated that up to 2 percent of all prescriptions are changed due to alerts for potential safety issues that are delivered real time to physicians.

"This pilot is another example of our commitment to advancing the health of our members and improving the quality, delivery and affordability of health care to our customers," said Ken Goulet, president of Anthem National Accounts.

The ePrescribing pilot will provide real-time prescription support to physicians, including access to formularies, drug-drug and drug-allergy alerts, and a patient's medication history including medications prescribed by physicians outside of the practice.

"It's our expectation that this pilot will help reduce medical errors and improve patient safety by providing drug-specific information that helps eliminate confusion among drug names and improve communication between physicians and pharmacists," said Nussbaum.

The technology will also allow physicians to send new prescriptions electronically to the pharmacy of the patient's choice as well as electronically process refill requests.

Anthem National Accounts' collaborator in the pilot, General Motors (GM), is the largest private purchaser of health care in the United States. GM pays the health care costs of 1.1 million employees, retirees and dependents. A significant number of GM employees, retirees and dependents live in the area in which the pilot program is being conducted.

"We expect the ePrescribing pilot will help physicians provide better, more efficient care for patients in this area, but health care consumers nationwide will also benefit," said Bruce Bradley, director of Healthcare Strategy and Public Policy, General Motors Corporation. "Physicians who adopt the ePrescribing program in their practices will be able to use it for all patients, not just Anthem members or GM employees."

Anthem is working with a number of organizations to implement the program, including: * MedPlus(R), the health care information technology subsidiary of Quest Diagnostics, (NYSE:DGX) to implement the ePrescribing pilot with its Care360(TM) physician portal; * RxHub(R), LLC, which is providing the technology infrastructure that supports the secure exchange of patient-specific prescribing information between physicians and pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and the transmission of the electronic prescriptions to mail-order pharmacies; * SureScripts(R), operators of the Pharmacy Health Information Exchange(TM), which facilitates the electronic connection between community pharmacies and physicians; and * WellPoint NextRx, Anthem's pharmacy benefit management company, which plays a key role by helping to ensure physician access to information, including benefits, eligibility, formularies and medication history.

Incentives are available to all physicians who ePrescribe and are eligible to participate in the company's pay-for-performance programs in the pilot areas.

"The current ePrescribing pilot further illustrates Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield's ongoing commitment to collaborating with physicians and our employer customers to deliver innovations in health care by piloting new programs in local markets to evaluate their effectiveness," said Goulet.

This program follows the announcement of the Anthem Care Comparison online cost transparency tool, which was introduced in Dayton late last year.

About Anthem National Accounts

The Anthem National Accounts business unit serves members of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in the 11 states of Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri (excluding 30 counties in the Kansas City area), Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Virginia (excluding the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.) and Wisconsin, in addition to Blue Cross of California, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia, and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield in the state of New York (Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield in 10 New York City metropolitan counties and as Empire Blue Cross or Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield in selected upstate counties only). All are independent licensees of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. (R) Registered marks Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Additional information about Anthem is available at www.anthem.com .

Source: Anthem National Accounts

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