The American Association for Homecare’s Executive Committee has greenlighted a project to both examine electronic prescription platforms and help promote adoption and acceptance of e-prescribing within the HME industry.
“It’s time for the HME community to move away from the fax machine and individual paper prescriptions and fully embrace e-prescribing,” said Steve Ackerman, AAHomecare chairman and president of Spectrum Medical. “Companies that invest in e-prescribing will be able to fill orders more efficiently to the benefit of patients and caregivers, while also reducing documentation errors and audits.
“At Spectrum Medical, we are constantly trying to reduce the number of ‘touches’ involved in an order while still maintaining regulatory compliance,” he added. “This should be a goal for all HME suppliers.”
As part of the project, AAHomecare staff and leaders will study leading e-prescribing platforms concerning their suitability for the HME sector with the end goal of recommending the best solutions to not only members of the association but the industry at large. AAHomecare reported it would then work with e-prescribing vendors to obtain additional guidance related to e-prescribing for HME, and then promote industry adoption of e-prescribing.
“The healthcare field is rapidly moving towards increased usage of electronic communications and record keeping, and HME suppliers need to keep up,” Ackerman explained. “While our companies will always rely on dedicated professionals to make sure that our patients are receiving a high standard of care, we also need to automate processes wherever it makes sense to do so.”