Established:   February 2004

Best Advice to New HIE:  Involve all stakeholders early in the process, including patients.  Establish and maintain inter-organizational relationships and focus on your common goals and shared needs.  Getting the technical part done is the easiest aspect of this work.  Ensure that you have some short term gains on your way to your long term goals.  Expect setbacks and challenges. 

 The Whatcom County e-Prescribing Project is a pilot implementation of electronic prescribing that will be expandable to a broad cross section of Whatcom County physicians.  We will have 6 primary care and specialty physicians and 2 mid level providers representing three practices and three different practice management software systems, utilizing PDAs and computer based electronic prescribing software by Dr First.  Dr. First already has connectivity to Sure Scripts, the physician to pharmacy connector and to RxHub, the payor to PBM to pharmacy connector.  This will ensure formulary availability at the point of prescription for the majority of patients, electronic transmission of prescriptions directly into many pharmacy systems, and viewing of a single medication list for a patient across all participating providers. 

Among the Project's significant accomplishment is the identification and selection of a vendor that will meet the needs of improved  physician workflow and patient safety and satisfaction.  This vendor has experience working with the practice management systems in place in our community so interfaces should proceed relatively smoothly.

Partnering Organizations: 

DrFirst/RCopia
HInet
St Joseph Hospital/PeaceHealth
Madrona Medical Group
Bellingham Asthma and Allergy
Bellingham OB-Gyn
Haggen Pharmacy

 For more information:

Lori Nichols
 360.671.6800 x 203
lnichols@hinet.org

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