#Dedicated to a Bright Future and Better E-Prescribing

Shervin Esfahani helps ensure that the nation’s most trusted and capable health information network continues to deliver on the promise of e-prescribing: improved cost, quality and safety while promoting medication adherence and reducing prescription fraud.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to develop, Shervin works in partnership with healthcare organizations across the country. Every day, he helps them navigate this new and challenging landscape—which includes a new industry standard for e-prescribing.

Q. Describe your role and how it helps keep the nation’s most trusted and capable health information network secure and reliable during a pandemic.

A. As a Product Marketing Manager, I work across the entire Surescripts organization to ensure that our efforts are communicated to our Network Alliance partners in the most concise, relevant and effective way possible. During these trying times, streamlined and impactful communication around our efforts is key for our stakeholders, and shows them that they can rely on us to continue to make their work easier. Making sure patients can still get their medications is critical, especially during COVID-19 and the recent civil unrest across the country. So, we’ve sent reminders to pharmacies to use Directory Manager to update their directories with their current operating hours and status. This helps prescribers use Pharmacy Finder as part of their e-prescribing workflow to select pharmacy locations that patients can access during the pandemic or other crises that might disrupt normal operations.

Q. Which areas of healthcare does your work most impact and how? 

A. My role and portfolio allow me to focus on some of our more mature and trusted products, like E-Prescribing, as well as some relatively new initiatives like Critical Performance Improvement. Our work to advance prescription accuracy across the entire network has a direct and positive impact on frontline healthcare workers and their ability to provide safe and efficient patient care.

And while we helped most of the network successfully migrate to the new NCPDP SCRIPT v2017071 standard ahead of the January deadline, we’re also helping them fully utilize the transactions it includes. For example, as pharmacies adopt and utilize RxChange within their electronic workflow, prescribers can adjust and clarify prescriptions without having to make a phone call or send an additional fax.

But we went even further when we heard from our partners how their priorities had shifted and their operations had changed. In response, we extended our sunset deadline for SCRIPT Version 10.6 by nine months to September 1, 2021. With this extra time, frontline organizations can reprioritize and complete the process while minimizing migration delay—and we’re looking forward to everyone benefitting from the new standard. 

This level of support is so important right now to doctors’ offices and health systems experiencing increased patient load. Time is already stretched for healthcare providers on a regular day let alone during the crisis, so we’re here to help them along however we can.

Q. What is your message to frontline healthcare workers? 

A. During these challenging and sometimes overwhelming times, you all are the foundation of hope for COVID-19 patients and their loved ones. Your perseverance, selflessness and courage are the fuel for the work we do backstage. Everyone at Surescripts is proud of you, proud to support you, and eternally grateful for your commitment to patients across the country.

Q. What keeps you going? What inspires you to stay #dedicated in tough times?

A. The future. At Surescripts, we say “The future is bright!” We stay focused on the light ahead, while staying present and aware of the impact that we’re collectively making. This is a unique moment when an individual decision can truly have a ripple effect—for better or worse—so it’s more important than ever to keep striving for what we know is possible. 

Q. What do you want people to know about the work that Surescripts does behind the scenes? 

A. We continue to keep patients and those who care for them at the center of all we do. We hope that our efforts behind the scenes make this extremely tough job a bit easier for providers on all sides of the network.

Learn more about how Shervin and his partners are working across the network to advance prescription accuracy. And check back soon for more stories in our #Dedicated series highlighting how Surescripts is keeping the nation’s most trusted and capable health information network humming.