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PaperFree Tampa Bay to Convert 10,000 Regional Physicians to E-Prescribing as First Step Toward Connected Electronic Health Records A new public/private partnership called PaperFree Tampa Bay, armed with strong Congressional support, launched a plan to jump-start America's electronic health revolution. PaperFree Tampa Bay will deploy more than 100 "electronic healthcare ambassadors" with a goal to convert 100 percent of physicians in the Tampa Bay area from paper prescriptions, known to be the cause of costly medical errors, to electronic prescribing. The effort is a first step toward the implementation of Connected Electronic Health Records (EHR) to improve patient safety and reduce costs, and intends to leverage funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Tampa) voiced her support for the funding at a press conference announcing the initiative which was attended by a broad array of healthcare, business and government leaders from across the Bay area.

"The intent of the Recovery Act is jobs, jobs, jobs," Congresswoman Castor said. "The Recovery Act calls for the creation of short-term jobs in the community while providing long-term economic stability. If funded, this University of South Florida electronic prescriptions project will create more than a hundred jobs for people who will work alongside physicians in the 10-county area. That will help in the long term as well, especially by improving our healthcare system."

"Our community will thrive in the long run with these high-wage health industry jobs," Castor said. "Through this project, we also are reinvesting in the future in science and technology."

Castor indicated she felt the partnership is positioned to receive funding from a portion of the $2 billion in discretionary funds available to the Secretary of Health and Human Services under the Recovery Act. A number of key stakeholders, including USF Health and Allscripts (Nasdaq: MDRX), will fund the initial phase, which will target Hillsborough County's 3,200 physicians. Once the recovery dollars become available, the program will be expanded to the entire 10-county Tampa Bay region, including the counties of DeSoto, Hardee, Hernando, Highlands, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk and Sarasota, which will allow additional hiring to occur.

PaperFree Tampa Bay anticipates that the program will create 132 new jobs: 111 trainers and 21 support staff.

Stephen Klasko, MD, MBA, Chief Executive Officer of USF Health and Dean of the USF College of Medicine, commented, "We are taking President Obama's vision of an interoperable electronic healthcare system that provides higher quality healthcare more cost-effectively and making it a reality today in Tampa Bay." Dr. Klasko added, "It's not about the hardware or the software - it's about changing the DNA of healthcare. We're talking about transforming the healthcare system one doctor's office at a time."

Glen Tullman, Chief Executive Officer of Allscripts, the leading provider of Electronic Health Records with a client base of nearly one-third of the nation's practicing physicians and the largest electronic prescribing vendor, called PaperFree Tampa Bay "the first program in a U.S. metropolitan area to implement the promise of President Obama's vision of safe, efficient 21st century electronic care." He added that discussions are underway with other communities in Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Iowa that are planning to follow PaperFree Tampa Bay's lead, and Allscripts is actively enrolling other client partners and cities across the nation in similar programs. "This will be a proof of concept that can become a model for the entire nation to help physicians quickly and easily transition from paper-based care to electronic health records and in so doing take advantage of federal incentives for their adoption," said Tullman.

Federal law empowers the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to pay physicians between $44,000 and $64,000 over five years, beginning in 2011, for deploying and using a certified Electronic Health Record to care for patients. In addition, federal law provides approximately $3,500 in annual financial incentives for doctors who e-prescribe now and will impose penalties on those who do not e-prescribe by 2012.

Electronic prescribing is a key component of EHR technology, and stand-alone e-prescribing solutions are widely viewed as the quickest and easiest means for physicians to transition from paper medical records to fully electronic records. "It's a relatively easy first step for physicians and a logical place to start because of the huge cost - in dollars and human lives - of our current system of handwritten prescriptions that are hand-delivered to the pharmacy," said Dr. Klasko.

Less than 10 percent of physicians in the U.S. currently write prescriptions electronically. PaperFree Tampa Bay will aim to get physicians on board by providing Allscripts web-based ePrescribe(TM) software free of charge and offering personalized outreach and one-on-one training to help doctors make the transition. The training curriculum will draw on groundbreaking research conducted at USF Health on how physicians respond to change.

Dr. Klasko noted that PaperFree Tampa Bay has set a bold goal - 100 percent physician participation - for an important reason. "The time to transform healthcare is now - we can't afford to wait," he said. "No doctor should feel comfortable that they are practicing the highest quality medicine in Tampa Bay if they are still hand-writing prescriptions." PaperFree Tampa Bay's vision for the region-wide program is that by the end of the effort, 100 percent of Bay-area physicians will be registered and trained on ePrescribe, 60 percent of eligible prescriptions will be written electronically, and 100 percent of physicians will be introduced to EHR technology.

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

Allscripts ePrescribe is a Web-based solution that requires no download, no new hardware, and minimal training. The product, currently used by more than 30,000 prescribers nationwide to write millions of prescriptions annually, can quickly generate secure electronic prescriptions and deliver them to the patient's pharmacy of choice.

This new partnership builds on the foundation laid by the National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative (NEPSI), a broad-based national coalition led by Dell Computers and Allscripts. NEPSI (www.nationalerx.com) is comprised of healthcare, technology and provider companies dedicated to positively impacting the national prescribing process through electronic prescribing delivery. USF Health is a regional supporter of NEPSI.

About USF Health

USF Health is dedicated to creating a model of healthcare based on understanding the full spectrum of health. It includes the University of South Florida's colleges of medicine, nursing, and public health; the schools of biomedical sciences as well as physical therapy & rehabilitation sciences; and the USF Physicians Group. With more than $360 million in research grants and contracts last year, USF is one of the nation's top 63 public research universities and one of 39 community-engaged, four-year public universities designated by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For more information, visit www.health.usf.edu.

Source: USF Health