Pharmacists and Technicians are Encouraged to Share Their Experience with Electronic Prescribing on New NASPA/SureScripts Online CQI Portal
The National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations (NASPA) and SureScripts have announced a collaborative effort to gather direct input from practicing community pharmacists and technicians about the experiences that they have had with electronic prescriptions.  This initiative, which compliments the patient safety focus of NASPA's ongoing Pharmacy Quality Commitment® program, is designed to allow the two organizations to gather suggestions for improvement as well as detailed, actionable, non-PHI data about issues that may have been encountered with electronic prescriptions so that said issues can be traced, analyzed, and if appropriate, remediated.  Depending upon the circumstances, these efforts might then lead to process improvement bulletins, new certification requirements, best practices, and if necessary, interventions with prescriber and pharmacy application vendors.  It is hoped that the widespread use of the Pharmacy  E-prescribing Experience Reporting Portal (PEER Portal) will lead to continuous innovation and quality improvement within e-prescribing processes on a national basis.  The Indiana Pharmacist Alliance (IPA) is a member of NASPA and is supporting this PEER Portal initiative.  The association has placed a link to the PEER Portal on its web site, and the association's leadership encourages its community pharmacist and technician members to fill out the brief questionnaire on the portal whenever they have suggestions for improvement to, or constructive criticisms about, e-prescribing processes that they have encountered.  Additional details about this initiative are available on the portal itself, which can be viewed by going to www.pqc.net/eprescribe.  Pharmacists and technicians having questions about the PEER Portal can feel free to contact either Tara Modisett of NASPA-CQI at (804) 285-4431 / tara@naspa.us or Ajit Dhavle of SureScripts at (703) 921-2149 / ajit.dhavle@surescripts.com.

Indiana Prescription Pad Information
The Indiana Pharmacists Alliance (IPA) and Community Pharmacies of Indiana (CPI) have previously notified its members of this requirement.   As a reminder, Indiana’s Rule 34 (856 IAC 1-34) details the requirements of Controlled Substance Prescription Security pads for use by practitioners and patients in the State of Indiana. Practitioners seeking a list of those printers authorized by the Indiana Board of Pharmacy to produce these pads may review the companies listed on the Board of Pharmacy’s website at http://www.in.gov/pla/2538.htm. To read Rule 34, Security Features for Prescriptions, visit www.in.gov/pla/files/856_IAC_1-34.pdf