By Joe Carlson/ HITS staff writer
A proposed rule from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that would allow tightly monitored use of computer technology to electronically transmit prescriptions for controlled substances is meeting with resistance from some in the healthcare community.
Although many drugs may already be prescribed through electronic means, the DEA still requires written prescriptions for controlled substances such as OxyContin. The federal agency, which has jurisdiction over controlled substances, proposed its new e-prescribing rule in June and gave the public until Sept. 25 to submit comments on the proposal.
The American Society of Consultant Pharmacists panned the prospective rule in an Sept. 24 letter to the DEA, saying in an 18-page protest that the new rule would be incompatible with existing e-prescribing systems and expensive to implement in rural settings. The society, which represents about 8,000 pharmacists specializing in geriatric pharmacotherapy, said the federal agency’s requirements would be out of touch with the needs of long-term-care patients on pain-management therapy. The new rule would require the prescriber to be in physical proximity to the patient, even though it is nurses who often make drug recommendations to prescribers in hospice, home healthcare and long-term-care settings, the society’s letter said.
The American Hospital Association also took issue with the proposed rule in a Sept. 24 letter, saying the proposal could put so much legal liability on prescribers that it could prevent adoption of the voluntary system. For example, it’s not clear whether the rule could allow criminal charges to be filed against a prescriber if someone steals and misuses an identity-verifying tool like a memory stick or personal digital assistant
Above article published on
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20080926/REG/309269994
Tags: e-Rx rules, prescriber, prescribers
Posted July 1, 2009 by admin under E-Prescription, Electronic Prescription
