In order to thrive, healthcare needs access to a great deal of patient intelligence. But healthcare organizations need to be certain that their patient intelligence will be protected from threats, shared with those who truly need it, and dependable—that is, accurate, complete, up-to-date and available whenever it’s needed.
In 2022, we worked across the Network Alliance to continually raise the bar for access, security and performance. Connecting nearly all electronic health records (EHR) vendors, pharmacy benefit managers, pharmacies and clinicians—plus health plans, long-term and post-acute care organizations, analytics vendors and specialty pharmacy organizations—the Network Alliance grew larger and exchanged more health intelligence than ever in 2022.
99.99% network uptime
Maintained certification with HITRUST, SOC2, the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation (EHNAC) and Direct Trust
More than 99%
of the U.S. population represented in our Master Patient Index
0.04 seconds to retrieve an accurate patient match on average
Advancing & celebrating data quality gains
Since 2016, Surescripts has measured factors that could impact the prescribing process by calculating a Quality Index Score. Our network-wide Quality Index Score rose 5% in 2022. In total, it has increased over 200% since 2016.
One key factor driving this increase came from improvements to the use of Structured & Codified Sig, which standardizes the patient directions field for e-prescriptions. We worked closely with several EHR vendors to identify drug classes where implementing Structured & Codified Sig would be most appropriate and have the greatest impact. This helped Sig quality rise throughout the year, and 23% of new prescriptions contained Structured & Codified Sig information at year’s end.
We also continued to make Medication History responses more complete and easier to navigate with automated data augmentation and deduplication.
of medication history responses augmented with additional information
of medication history responses streamlined by removing duplicate medication records
Referential patient matching makes medication histories more complete
Health intelligence sharing begins with accurate patient identification, so patient matching enhancements improve everything from checking patient benefits to updating clinical history.
The proprietary algorithm that powers the Surescripts Master Patient Index got an upgrade in 2022 with the addition of patient reference records, including demographic data such as name, name changes, date of birth, and current and prior addresses.
Gains in patient and medication information were significant:
-
Additional data found for more than Additional data found for more than 400,000 patients in a single day
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4% more medications identified across all Medication History responses in December 2022
2022 Winners
Congratulations to all our 2022 White Coat Award Winners!
John Hopkins Medicine
Medent
Walmart
Mercy
NowRx Pharmacy
DAW Systems, Inc.
BestRx Pharmacy Software
Baptist Health
E-Prescribing
There’s no better example of what healthcare can achieve by working together at scale than the adoption of electronic prescribing. Wherever medications are prescribed and filled, E-Prescribing brings greater clarity and efficiency to prescriber/pharmacist communication, leaving far less room for errors that can impact patient safety. In 2022, the number of prescribers using E-Prescribing grew 7.9%, reaching 1.23 million and joining virtually all pharmacies in the U.S.
Where did new e-prescribers come from in 2022?
Just five types of prescriber roles and specialties made up nine-tenths of the growth in e-prescribers in 2022.
E-Prescribing for Controlled Substances (EPCS)
EPCS brings extra safety and security to controlled substance prescriptions. As of December 2022, 35 states had enacted legislation that mandates the use of e-prescribing for all prescriptions, all controlled substance prescriptions, or a subset of controlled substance prescriptions, typically those for opioids. In 2022, virtually all pharmacies were enabled for EPCS, and the number of e-prescribers enabled for EPCS increased 9.5%.
CancelRx
CancelRx lets prescribers notify pharmacists electronically when they need to cancel a prescription, avoiding the need to fax or call and preventing patients from receiving medications they shouldn’t be taking.
CancelRx enablement
1.23 million e-prescribers and more than 61,000 retail pharmacies were active on the Surescripts network in 2022
RxChange
RxChange makes it simpler for pharmacists and prescribers to optimize prescriptions together. When a pharmacist wants to suggest a less costly medication alternative to the prescriber—or alert them that a prior authorization is required—they can use this transaction to send a request and get a response electronically.
CancelRx resolves medication list discrepancies
UW Health implemented the CancelRx transaction to ensure that when prescribers discontinue medications, pharmacies get notified. In 2022, researchers from the University of Wisconsin, Madison published a study examining the results:1
Percent of discontinued medications successfully canceled at the pharmacy:
Before CancelRx
34%
With CancelRx
93%
Average time for a discontinuation order to reach the pharmacy:
Before CancelRx
12.93hrs
With CancelRx
Instantaneous
“That 12 hours is very impactful when a prescriber might prescribe something unintentionally in error and want to call that prescription back.”
Michelle Chui, Pharm.D.
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Footnotes:
- Taylor L. Watterson et al., “CancelRx Implementation: Observed Changes to Medication Discontinuation Workflows Over Time,” Exploratory Research in Clinical and Social Pharmacy, January 25, 2022.
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