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Sen. Moore addresses National E-Prescribing Conference in Boston
October 7, 2008... The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) hosted a national e-prescribing conference at the Sheraton Boston Hotel this week to discuss the use of electronic prescription technology. E-Prescribing enables licensed medical practitioners to transmit prescriptions via the Internet, instead of writing them on paper. According to the Institute of Medicine, 1.5 million Americans are harmed annually due to prescription drug errors. Beginning in 2009 and until 2013, Medicare will provide incentive payments to eligible providers who E-Prescribe. The conference in Boston is the national kick-off for a major initiative to expand the use of E-Prescribing. Among the speakers who addressed this important national gathering was Sen. Richard T. Moore, D-Uxbridge, Senate Chairman of the Massachusetts Legislature's Committee on Health Care Financing. Sen. Moore participated in a panel entitled: "Promoting E-Prescribing in Your State: Getting Policy Makers on Board." For the second year in a row, Massachusetts has ranked #1 for E-Prescribing, saving lives and money for the Commonwealth. Currently, 13.43% of Massachusetts prescriptions are written electronically. A recent study reported that if 70% of prescription were E-Prescribed, the Massachusetts health system could save about $170 million a year net. "Massachusetts is already the national leader in E-Prescribing, but with only 15% of physicians using the technology, we have a long way to go," Moore told the gathering. "That's why the Massachusetts Legislature has mandated that all physicians must be using electronic prescribing technology by January 1, 2015." Sen. Moore, who is also Vice President of the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), has been among the chief national advocates for expanding the use of E-Prescribing technology. The National Governors Association and NCSL are both among the organizations leading the effort to gain adoption of health information technology across the nation. Both organizations have endorsed state efforts to expand E-Prescribing as the main gateway to promoting health information technology and electronic medical records to improve health quality and safety and reduce health costs. Nationally, Sen. Moore is the Co-Chair of NCSL's Health Information Champions (HITCh) Project and a member of the National Governor's Association's State eHealth Alliance. He has played a key role in establishing the National Advisory Committee for the State Health Reform Project of the Brookings Institution's Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform, and also serves as a current member of the Committee. In addition, Sen. Moore is a member of the Massachusetts Team participating in the State Quality Institute, a project involving quality teams from ten states sponsored by AcademyHealth and the Commonwealth Fund. Other speakers at the conference were U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt, CMS Acting Administrator Kerry Weems, U.S. Sen. John F. Kerry, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, and Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri. For more information on Sen. Moore's work in the Legislature, please visit www.senatormoore.com. |
