Vermont moves up to 7th in national electronic prescription rankings

Vermont Information Technology Leaders (VITL) today announced that Vermont has moved up two places in the national ranking of states for use of electronic prescribing -- from ninth to seventh place. In 2012, 1.7 million prescriptions were sent to pharmacies electronically from Vermont health care providers, compared to 1.3 million prescriptions in 2011.
The 2012 Safe-Rx State Rankings, conducted by Surescripts which operates and maintains a national e-prescription network, measure each state’s progress in advancing health care safety, efficiency, and quality through the adoption and use of e-prescribing. According to Surescripts, the rankings recognize the full utilization of e-prescribing based on volume of use for all three e-prescribing services: prescription benefit, medication history, and prescription routing.
‘Physicians in Vermont recognize that e-prescribing increases patient safety by reducing the potential for errors that can result from handwriting prescriptions,’said John K Evans, president and CEO of VITL. ‘This is just one example where health information technology is enhancing patient care.’
The growth in electronic prescribing in Vermont was facilitated by VITL’s ePrescribe Vermont initiative, which began in early 2010 and was funded through a federal grant secured by U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont. During the program VITL’s staff worked with health care providers around Vermont to implement e-prescribing in both electronic health records systems and a freestanding eprescribing portal.
‘Vermont’s impressive Surescripts ranking is a true testament to the great work being done in Vermont in coordination with Vermont Information Technology Leaders,’said Senator Leahy. ‘This is an example of how increased training and technical assistance to both physicians and pharmacists can reduce potential for medical errors and improve quality and access to healthcare for all Vermonters.’
‘The assistance provided through the efforts of Senator Leahy has been invaluable in our efforts to train Vermont physicians and other prescribers to implement electronic health records and e-prescribing,’Evans continued. The number of Vermont prescribers sending prescriptions to pharmacies electronically increased from 736 in 2010 to 1,107 in 2012, according to Surescripts. Eighty-two percent of Vermont physicians are now using e-prescribing and 93 percent of Vermont pharmacies are able to receive electronic prescriptions. More than 60 percent of all prescriptions written by Vermont providers are sent to pharmacies electronically, up from 28 percent in 2010.
About VITL: Vermont Information Technology Leaders, Inc. (VITL) is a non-profit organization that assists Vermont health care providers statewide with adopting and using health information technology to improve the quality of care delivery as well as to enhance patient safety and outcomes. Comprised of a collaborative group of stakeholders including health plans, hospitals, physicians, other health care providers, state government, employers, and consumers, VITL is the designated health information exchange (HIE) for the state of Vermont and also the state’s federally-designated regional extension center. For more information, please visit www.vitl.net.