The Ile Camera
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Oakwood ePrescribing program is a success
By Joe Slezak, Heritage Newspapers
PUBLISHED: March 16, 2007
TAYLOR — Dr. Viorel Lupu likes to integrate technology into his medical practice.
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During a trip to Europe last year, he used his laptop computer to check on his patients' prescriptions through an Oakwood Healthcare Inc. ePrescribing pilot program called Rcopia that started in January 2006 and ran for the entire year.
He was one of 177 Oakwood physicians who participated.
"I was very enthusiastic from the very beginning," said Lupu, who works with Taylor Internal Medicine Associates. "It happens right now."
Mary Roodbergen, manager of information technology implementations for Oakwood Healthcare, said she anticipated that 70 of Oakwood's roughly 1,300 physicians would participate.
"It was a launching pad for them to move to electronic medical records," she said.
Roodbergen started working on the project in September 2005, and technology from DrFirst was chosen from among several vendors.
"It's extremely easy to operate," Lupu said. "The learning curve is very fast."
He practiced for a week, and it only took his staff a couple of weeks to learn, he said.
Electronic accounts are created for each participating doctor's patients. A list of a patient's other medicines and allergies are included in each Microsoft Windows-based file.
If a doctor prescribes a medicine that could negatively interact with another medicine, affect the patient's allergies or cause possible side effects, the program will notify the doctor.
Roodbergen said that transmitting prescriptions electronically eliminates the pharmacist having to deal with potentially poor handwriting. And, Lupu said, it reduces the possibility of forged or altered prescriptions.
If a generic alternative drug is available, the doctor will be notified, but if the doctor gives the "dispense as written" order, that will be honored.
Prescriptions also can be filled before the patient even arrives, depending on how busy the pharmacy is. And, pharmacists can send electronic notes to doctors when refills are scheduled.
"The turnaround time is about a half hour — click to pickup," Lupu said, adding he sometimes also sends a hard copy of the prescription with the patient if they want to have a piece of paper in hand.
If a pharmacy isn't part of the program, Lupu said his staff will fax the prescription.
Roodbergen said ePrescribing was driven locally by the Big Three automakers' desire to help cut health care costs. Metropolitan Detroit's major drugstores — CVS/pharmacy, Rite Aid and Walgreens — are on board, as are several smaller pharmacies and third-party health plan administrators.
"We've had nothing but good feedback," she said. "Everybody likes it.
"It's been such a good project."
Among the others already on board with ePrescribing were Henry Ford Health System, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, Health Alliance Plan and Medco Health Solutions.
Lupu made a presentation to about 600 managers in the Oakwood system about the advantages of ePrescribing, and in February, he received the 2007 Safe-Rx award from the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, National Community Pharmacists Association and the SureScripts Electronic Prescribing Resource Center.
The effort also was named as Oakwood's Clinical Program of the Year.
"It's out there," Lupu said. "This time and day, you should get computer savvy."
(Lara Mossa, Journal Register News Service reporter, contributed to this report.)
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