Iowa Health System Launches First Statewide Electronic Prescribing System

Iowa Health System, the largest integrated health system in the state, and Allscripts have launched a program to convert a majority of Iowa's physicians from paper prescriptions to electronic ones in order to cut down on costly medical errors, according to an Iowa Health System news release.

The program, called ePrescribe Iowa, is free Web-based e-prescribing solution to physicians throughout Iowa and automates the process of writing prescriptions and transmitting them to pharmacies while alerting physicians to potentially dangerous drug-to-drug interactions, drug allergies, dosage errors and other problems that can occur when writing prescriptions on paper, according to the release. The program also provides physicians a way to transition from paper medical records to a full electronic health record.

ePrescribe Iowa also is a component of HealthNet connect, Iowa Health System's 3,200-mile fiber-optic network that stretches from Denver to Chicago, according to the release.

According to a 2006 Institute of Medicine study, 1.5 million Americans are injured each year and 7,000 die from preventable medication errors. According to the release, the authors cited benefits of e-prescribing that include eliminating errors due to illegible handwriting, creating electronic records to ensure prescription information is not lost, checking for allergies and potentially dangerous drug interactions and reducing costs by improving efficiency and identifying less-expensive drug options.

Read the release about ePrescribe Iowa.