Electronic Prescribing Training Comes Back to Middle Tennessee

NASHVILLE – A statewide campaign to get health care providers ready to issue patient prescriptions electronically comes back to Middle Tennessee this week as Tennessee’s Office of e-Health Initiatives hosts two electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) training sessions for health care providers in Gallatin and Murfreesboro.

The Murfreesboro training session will be from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., on Wednesday, March 18, at Murfreesboro Medical Center, 1004 N. Highland Ave.  The Gallatin session will be from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., on Thursday, March 19, at Sumner Regional Medical Center, 555 Hartsville Road. 

E-prescribing is the secure, electronic transmission, from a medical provider’s computer to a pharmacist’s computer, of a patient’s prescription that needs to be filled or re-filled.

“Tennessee is moving rapidly from early adoption to mainstream adoption of electronic prescribing,” said Governor Phil Bredesen.  “To ensure that we continue to move forward, we must educate both providers and patients as to how electronic prescribing will improve health care costs, delivery and safety.”

During the training session, attendees will learn:  1) How e-prescribing benefits providers, pharmacies and patients; 2) How to access the secure Tennessee e-Health Network; and 3) How to adopt e-prescribing into their everyday workflow for better patient care.

Pre-registration is required and attendees must be approved recipients of the Office of e-Health Initiatives’ Physician Connectivity Grants. 

To receive the grants, health care providers must agree to e-prescribe for two years.  The Office of e-Health Initiatives has approved 1,830 health care providers in Tennessee as grant recipients. 

The Office of e-Health Initiatives kicked off the e-prescribing training campaign in January and so far, has trained more than 330 grant recipients on e-prescribing, most recently hosting training sessions for Chattanooga area health providers.

Tennessee has 2,238 active electronic prescribers, with 1,110 pharmacies in the state accepting prescriptions electronically.

In 2008, Tennessee health care providers issued more than 2 million electronic prescriptions, representing three percent of all prescriptions written in the state.

The Office of e-Health Initiatives is the single coordinating authority for the exchange of electronic health information in Tennessee and works to improve the health of Tennesseans by ensuring providers have complete patient information at the point of care.

For more information on the Office of e-Health Initiatives, visit www.tn.gov/ehealth or call 615-532-5041.

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