BILL ANALYSIS
AB 718
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 28, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONS
Mary Hayashi, Chair
AB 718 (Emmerson) - As Amended: April 22, 2009
SUBJECT : Inland Empire Health Plan E-Prescribing Pilot Program.
SUMMARY : Declares Legislative intent to create an e-prescribing
pilot program. Specifically, this bill :
1)Declares Legislative intent to enact legislation creating the
Inland Empire Health Plan E-Prescribing Pilot Program, which
would meet all of the following requirements:
a) Be administered by an entity with certification from the
Certification Commission for Health Information Technology
with a minimum of five years of e-prescribing experience
under the Medi-Cal program;
b) Promote health care quality and the exchange of health
care information; and,
c) Include all of the following components:
i) Integrated clinical decision support alerts for
allergies, drug-drug interactions, duplications in
therapy, and elderly alerts;
ii) Current payer formulary information;
iii) Appropriate alternatives, when needed, to support
cost-effective prescribing at the point of care;
iv) Drug compendia approved by the Center for Medicare
and Medicaid Services; and,
v) Electronic transmission of prescriptions.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Regulates the dispensing by prescription of dangerous devices
and dangerous drugs, which include controlled substances.
2)Existing law authorizes the electronic transmission of
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prescriptions under specified circumstances.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
Purpose of this bill . According to the author's office, "This
legislation will greatly benefit the health care industry,
including the Medi-Cal Program. Medi-Cal currently enlists
approximately 114,000 providers to care for 6.5 million patients
in California. Enacting this program for the Inland Empire
Health plan is expected to generate significant savings."
Background . Electronic prescribing, also known as
e-prescribing, is the use of an automated data entry system to
generate a prescription, rather than writing it on paper.
Automation of the outpatient prescribing process has many
potential benefits to different health care stakeholders.
Patients and physicians benefit from:
Improved patient safety, through generation of legible
prescriptions that have been checked by the computer for
possible harmful interactions;
Better formulary adherence, through checking against
health plan formularies at the point of prescribing;
Streamlined communication of prescriptions to
pharmacies, resulting in receipt of clean, legible,
formulary-adherent prescriptions, thus reducing calls back
to physician offices to clarify inconsistencies; and,
Improved patient satisfaction, through rapid
prescription fulfillment and fewer errors.
The inclusion of electronic prescribing in the Medicare
Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003 gave momentum to the movement,
and the July 2006 Institute of Medicine report on the role of
e-prescribing in reducing medication errors has received
widespread publicity, helping to build awareness of
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e-prescribing's role in enhancing patient safety.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Reed Elsevier
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Sarah Huchel / B. & P. / (916) 319-3301