Connecticut Children’s Medical Center is the first healthcare organization in the state to successfully integrate its electronic health records system with the state’s prescription drug database, according to the state officials and the hospital.
Prescribing providers in Connecticut are required by law to review a patient’s controlled substance dispensation history before prescribing controlled medications for longer than 72 hours.
Connecticut Children’s physicians now have access to controlled substance prescription histories in real-time to improve patient safety and prevent overprescribing, the hospital said. Without the link between systems, doctors need to log into the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program separately to retrieve a patient’s controlled substance prescriptions and then cross-reference it against their own records.
“Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and our providers are excited to lead the way for others in the state to make responsible use of available information to protect patients and families from overdose and drug diversion,” Chief Medical Information Officer Dr. Richelle DeMayo said in a statement.
