TennCare and Shared Health(R) Partner to Deliver ePrescribing to Rural ...( CHATTANOOGA Tenn. March 20 /- The...),Health

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., March 20 /PRNewswire/ -- The Bureau of TennCare and Shared Health, Tennessee's largest public/private health information exchange (HIE), have launched a pilot program to introduce ePrescribing capabilities to rural physician practices located throughout the state.

The ePrescribing program is a community approach to facilitate efficient health care delivery and enhance patient care. Fifty rural physician practices across 13 Tennessee counties are participating in the TennCare ePrescribing pilot program. Each of the practices were chosen because none currently has access to, or the resources to implement, ePrescription technology within its practice. The purpose of the pilot program is to learn patterns, behaviors, and user satisfaction across different practices, specialties and locations.

As part of the program, participating physicians receive the tools needed to get started, free of charge -- including equipment, software, Internet access for prescribers, as well as training and support. Participating physicians will gain access to a medication database, automatic prescription histories, real-time notification of TennCare and other insurance formulary status, automated checks for drug interactions, dosage levels, and patient- specific factors, including any previous adverse reactions.

The ePrescribing program provides technology to enable physicians to directly route prescriptions to pharmacies that participate with the TennCare Pharmacy Benefits Manager. Approved pharmacies will be reimbursed the transaction fee associated with filling prescriptions by use of ePrescribing in the 13 counties.

"TennCare is excited to bring this Shared Health product free of charge to physicians with limited technology resources," said Wendy Long, MD, chief medical officer, TennCare. "The opportunity for doctors to access the efficiencies and built-in safeguards of an electronic prescribing system can only improve patient care."
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