Summary:
Medication errors alone cause 7,000 deaths a year or the equivalent of 16 jumb-jet plane crashes. Find out how the NEPSI (National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative) project offers a free prevention tool to every physician in America and safeguards your health.

Details or Sample:
Medication Errors: Be Part of the Cure
By Nancy LaPonzina RN MA

Medication errors alone cause 7,000 deaths a year…or the equivalent of roughly 16 passenger-filled jumbo jet crashes. What contributes to this number of deaths from medication errors? Errors can occur from paper-based scripts, illegible handwriting, misinterpretation of medication dosage, and undetected drug interactions. If this sounds like yet another broken aspect of health care in the U.S. there is a cure to minimize errors just waiting to be swallowed, and far from being bitter it’s free.

NEPSI (National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative) is a consortium of organizations working to prevent medication errors using information technology available today. NEPSI stakeholders include Allscripts LLC, Microsoft Corp., Dell Inc., Fujitsu Computers of America, Cisco Systems Inc., Walters-Kluwer Health Inc., Google, and SureScripts. Together they combined component electronic health care technology and developed an electronic prescribing system used with an Internet connection. And better yet, the service is offered free to any physician in America who wants to participate in the five-year project.

20% of physicians already use available electronic prescribing technology in Electronic Health Records (EHRs) and practice management software. To lessen the medical Digital Divide, NEPSI’s goal is to provide physicians who practice without electronic health care software a free, entry-level, medication-error prevention tool that has a 20 minute learning curve.

The next time you see your physician, ask if his office uses free electronic prescribing services. Become a partner in your healthcare by ensuring the prescription the provider electronically prescribes for you will be checked for the correct medication, the correct dosage level, and for drug interactions specific to your medical history. Your information is handled according to Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy guidelines for medical privacy.

More information and a demonstration are available through the NEPSI project. Help reduce unnecessary deaths from medication errors and participate in your health care.

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