5 Ways Clinical Direct Messaging Can Help Close Gaps in Care

Imagine a game of telephone: a phrase gets passed from person to person through nearly inaudible whispers and the person at the end of the line must share what they heard. It’s usually drastically different than what was first shared and, of course, laughter ensues.

Now add real telephones and fax machines—and patient clinical information that must travel between physicians, pharmacists, health plans and healthcare organizations, where it’s needed to support patient care.

It’s no longer a laughing matter.

Incomplete or missing patient data—or an inability to trust the accuracy of the information at the end of the line—can have grave consequences. At a minimum it might mean a gap in patient care.

Fortunately, the delivery of healthcare today is nothing like a game of telephone. And the fax machine is thankfully being replaced with trusted technology that brings more effective and trusted communication to every corner of healthcare.

Using the Direct standard, healthcare professionals and organizations can safely communicate, share clinical intelligence and work collaboratively, ensuring patients receive quality, safe and less costly care with the help of Surescripts Clinical Direct Messaging.

Here are five ways Clinical Direct Messaging is closing gaps in care—with practical examples of how it's being used today:

1. Enabling easy and efficient communication between clinicians and across care settings.   
    
   • Transitions of care messages: A provider at one hospital receives a Direct message from a provider at another hospital that one of their patients has been discharged from inpatient care and transferred to a rehab facility.
   • Electronic case reporting: A Direct message is sent from the electronic health record (EHR) to a public health agency after a provider reports a patient tested positive for COVID-19.
   • Referrals: A provider sends a referral for a patient in their practice to another provider or health system like a cardiologist. This Direct message includes structured patient data that can be sent between providers or health systems, regardless of the EHR being used.
2. Giving providers access to complete and accurate patient data.  
    
   • Immunization notifications: A pharmacist administers a flu immunization to a patient at the pharmacy and sends a Direct message to the patient’s primary care provider (PCP). The PCP can then update the patient’s health record, confirming receipt of the immunization within their existing workflow.
3. Enhancing patient safety and helping reduce costs. 
    
   • Medication interchange notifications from pharmacists to prescribers: A pharmacy sends a Direct message to a prescriber to notify them that an alternative biosimilar medication was filled at their pharmacy for an arthritic patient. The prescriber updates the patient’s record accordingly using their EHR software.
   • Lower-cost alternative medication notification: A prescriber receives a Direct message from a health plan or pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) that a lower-cost medication alternative is available for the medication they recently prescribed for a patient.
4. Giving health plans and PBMs a safe and easy way to quickly exchange valuable member information with providers or communicate with them one-on-one. 
    
   • Formulary notifications from health plans or PBMs to prescribers: A prescriber receives a Direct message from a health plan that their formulary has been updated. The prescriber can later share with their patient that the medication they prescribed is covered under their health plan’s new formulary.
5. Giving care managers the ability to effectively communicate with other care team members to address concerns like nonadherence or improve health outcomes. 
    
   • Addressing gaps in care for better care outcomes: A prescriber receives a Direct message from a health insurer that one of their patients could benefit from a statin prescription, aiding in medication therapy management and medication adherence as appropriate.

Trusted Connections Are Advancing Healthcare

These are just some examples of how we are empowering patient care teams with a simple, secure and standards-based connection, delivering greater efficiency along the way.

And it’s one more way Surescripts is advancing clinical interoperability for a truly seamless flow of patient-specific clinical and benefit information that helps healthcare organizations deliver higher quality, safer and less costly care for patients.