Surescripts Expands White Coat Award to Recognize Health System, Pharmacy and EHR Leaders for Improving Prescription Accuracy

Expanded award eligibility and updated criteria elevate industry
leaders who make meaningful changes to enhance patient safety and
healthcare delivery

ARLINGTON, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/EHR?src=hash” target=”_blank”gt;#EHRlt;/agt;–Surescripts, the nation’s leading health information network, has
expanded the eligibility criteria and award categories for the Surescripts
White Coat Award™ to include health systems, pharmacies and pharmacy
technology leaders, in addition to electronic health records (EHR)
vendors. As part of the Surescripts Critical
Performance Improvement program, the annual award recognizes
organizations who are striving to reach the highest levels of
prescription accuracy by adopting best practices and implementing
technology enhancements.

“The White Coat Award celebrates healthcare leaders who are improving
prescription accuracy for physicians, pharmacists and patients,”
explained Tom Skelton, Chief Executive Officer of Surescripts. “By
working together across the Surescripts
Network Alliance™, we’re having a measurable impact on patient
safety and workflow efficiency, and saving substantial time by
eliminating back-and-forth phone calls and faxes among prescribers and
pharmacists to clarify the prescriber’s intent.”

Since establishing the Critical Performance Improvement program in 2016,
the Surescripts Network Alliance has improved e-prescription accuracy by
64% as measured by Surescripts’ Quality Index Score. This improvement
was achieved in three ways: by optimizing the appropriate use of
e-prescription data fields, including Drug Description, Representative
National Drug Code (NDC), RxNorm and Potency Unit Code; by enhancing
directory alignment; and by increasing the adoption of the Structured
and Codified Sig data field as well as RxChange, CancelRx, and
Electronic Prescribing for Controlled Substances (EPCS).

Optimizing the e-prescribing process impacts patient safety, improves
time to therapy and enhances patient care. For example, a recent study
co-authored by Surescripts found that expanding the use of CancelRx
could prevent nearly 10 million potential patient safety risks per year.
Identifying prescription accuracy issues at their source also helps
ensure high quality prescription information every time the data is used
going forward, such as during the medication
reconciliation process.

Award Timing, Categories and Eligibility

White Coat Award recipients will be announced in September in two
categories: Highest Accuracy and Most Improved Accuracy. Eligible
organizations will be evaluated based on Surescripts’ Quality Index
Score, which leverages Surescripts Sentinel^®
to assess e-prescription accuracy. Surescripts Sentinel was established
in 2017 to measure the accuracy of e-prescriptions and deliver insights
to pharmacists, prescribers and technology vendors. It pinpoints
specific areas for improvement and provides analysis of electronic
prescribing trends to inform better patient care.

The Surescripts White Coat Award recognizes market-leading EHRs from two
tiers (those with more than 20,000 monthly active prescribers and those
with 20,000 or fewer monthly active prescribers). To be eligible, EHRs
must contract directly with Surescripts, serve multiple provider groups
and use one of three designated drug compendia.

The Surescripts White Coat Award recognizes health systems in three
competition tiers (those with more than 1,000 beds, those with between
501 and 1,000 beds and those with 500 or fewer beds). To be eligible,
health systems must contract directly with Surescripts.

The Surescripts White Coat Award recognizes pharmacy market leaders for
improvements to workflow efficiency and processes that ensure patient
safety. Pharmacy software vendors, retail pharmacy chains and PBM mail
order pharmacies who maintain their own pharmacy software are eligible
and will be selected from three tiers (those with more than 500,000
monthly refill requests and those with 500,000 or fewer refill requests).

Visit the Surescripts
White Coat Award webpage to learn more about the award categories,
tiers, and eligibility.

Contacts

Kelly Jeffers
Surescripts
(571) 384-4776
kelly.jeffers@surescripts.com