10 Healthcare Leaders Celebrated with Surescripts White Coat Award for E-Prescription Accuracy

Annual Award Highlights Exemplary Healthcare Organizations Dedicated to Making Care Safer and More Efficient

Surescripts, the nation’s leading health information network, announced 10 winners of the 2020 Surescripts White Coat Award™, which recognizes healthcare industry leaders for improving healthcare through prescription accuracy. This year’s winners include:

• Electronic Health Records (EHR) Vendors: athenahealth, Inc., Henry Schein MicroMD, NewCrop and Office Ally 
• Health Systems: Hartford HealthCare, Hospital Sisters Health System, MidMichigan Health and Montage Health  
• Retail & Mail-Order Pharmacies and Pharmacy Technology Vendors: Lincare, Inc. and Walmart

Today, e-prescribing is widespread, with 80% of all prescriptions filled in the U.S. sent electronically. But there are still opportunities to improve the accuracy of these highly sensitive electronic transactions. In fact, each electronic prescription contains 40 distinct data elements, and there can be more than 800 variations of common directions such as “Take one tablet by mouth once daily.”

“Year after year, participants from across the Surescripts Network Alliance^® continue to raise the bar when it comes to creating safer and more efficient prescriptions,” said Tom Skelton, Chief Executive Officer of Surescripts. “These improvements mean physicians and pharmacists spent less time exchanging phone calls and faxes to clarify prescriber intent and ensure patients get the safe, effective care they deserve without unnecessary delays.”

This year, Surescripts recognized White Coat Award winners in three categories:

Highest Accuracy: These organizations achieved the highest accuracy in their industry based on a Quality Index Score that measures the effective use of 11 key elements of electronic prescriptions, such as Drug Description, Days Supply and Appropriate Use of Notes.

RxChange Champion: These organizations supported broader adoption and utilization of RxChange, which lets pharmacies communicate with prescribers electronically to request changes or clarifications to prescriptions and prior authorizations. 

Structured & Codified Sig Champion: These organizations delivered wider use of standardized patient directions, which supports greater automation, clear prescriber intent and appropriate dispensing. 

As part of the Surescripts Critical Performance Improvement program, pharmacies, EHR vendors, health systems and pharmacy technology vendors have worked together to improve e-prescription accuracy for the benefit of every pharmacist, prescriber and patient. Since 2016, the aggregated Quality Index Score for electronic prescriptions sent across the Surescripts network has improved 80%, as measured by Surescripts Sentinel^®. Surescripts Sentinel^® monitors the accuracy of all electronic prescriptions sent across the Surescripts network, raising the bar for patient safety, care quality and workflow efficiency by pinpointing specific areas for improvement and providing analysis of electronic prescribing trends to inform better patient care.

To learn more about the 2020 Surescripts White Coat Award winners, visit /whitecoataward.