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The use of health IT has exploded in the last decade, and that means better health care...Electronic health records, computerized prescriber-order-entry systems, and barcode-assisted medication administration systems have now become almost universal in hospitals nationwide...According to the “ASHP National Survey of Pharmacy Practice in Hospital Settings: Prescribing and Transcribing — 2016,” nearly 100% of hospitals across the United States have adopted these technologies...Survey results reveal that the use of health IT by hospitals has led to a rapid increase in “paperless care.”... ASHP CEO, Paul W. Abramowitz, PharmD, said in a statement that, in addition to improving medication safety, the increased use of information technology shows great potential for pharmacists to spend more time providing comprehensive medication therapy management in and across all settings of patient care. “These positive findings move us closer to achieving ASHP’s vision that medication use will be optimal, safe, and effective for all people all of the time.” Abramowitz said.

Nicole Crisano, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

Laura Joszt, assistant managing editor at The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network

In response to the devastation associated with Hurricane Harvey, several retailers have stepped up their giving...H-E-B...early into the storm donated $100,000 toward Hurricane Harvey relief efforts and have begun accepting customer donations for the families and communities devastated by the storm...H-E-B has received numerous requests from customers about how they can help support victims and communities affected…In Victoria, Texas, Walgreens loaned the city a generator in order for them to help power their sewage facility and prevent from comprising the water supply of 70,000 residents with sewage backflow. "We proactively staged generators in the area and were able to quickly provide one to the city during this emergency,"...CVS Health and the CVS Health Foundation gave $200,000 in cash and in-kind product donations to organizations helping with relief efforts for those affected...The CVS Health Foundation has donated $50,000 each to the Greater Houston Community Foundation and the American Red Cross, as well as $25,000 to Salvation Army, to aid the greater Houston area in supporting local residents...Walmart and the Walmart Foundation have made a $1 million commitment to provide support for relief efforts through cash and product donations. As a part of this commitment, Walmart is working closely with organizations like the American Red Cross, Salvation Army and Convoy of Hope while coordinating efforts with elected officials and governmental entities to help meet the needs of those affected...

Roseman University College of Medicine...announced a $10 million pledge gift from the Engelstad Family Foundation, which will help advance the opening of the school...“This is really a very important moment for the history of Roseman,” said Dr. Mark Penn, founding dean for the medical school. “We don’t have state support, so we rely on other money, resources to support what we try to do. We’re thrilled they want to partner with us this way.”...The donation is the largest in the Henderson university’s history, and kicks off a $66 million fundraising campaign. The medical school will be in Summerlin, where the campus nursing school is...The money is needed to hire critical faculty and staff, an important step as the school continues through a new accreditation process…

Canada is set to begin deploying a national electronic prescribing platform, called PrescribeIT...Canada Health Infoway, a federally funded, nonprofit digital health organization, said...that it has reached agreements to enable PrescribeIT in six provinces: Alberta, Ontario, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland/Labrador. Those provinces represent 61% of the Canadian population...PrescribeIT will allow prescribers to securely transmit an prescription from an electronic medical record to the pharmacy management system at a patient’s pharmacy of choice...PrescribeIT’s features will include the ability to securely send e-scripts for all medications, including controlled substances; deliver a prescription to a patient’s pharmacy; send prescription renewal requests from a pharmacist to a prescriber; and cancel a transaction by the prescriber or pharmacist...PrescribeIT is expected to decrease patient wait times for their prescriptions, enhance patient safety by reducing the possibility of medication errors, improve medication management and patient health outcomes, reduce fraud and abuse by eliminating handwritten prescriptions, ensure data integrity for monitoring of controlled substances, and create a commercial-free prescribing and dispensing environment...

Nicole Crisano, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

Laura Joszt, assistant managing editor at The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network

The plaintiff in a proposed class action lawsuit against CVS dropped her claims...After making a series of allegations that pharmacy giant CVS was gouging generic drug consumers who paid with insurance, the plaintiff in a proposed class action lawsuit dropped her claims...Megan Schulz alleged she paid more through insurance to get a generic drug than if she’d just paid cash. The suit also alleged pharmacy "copays" were really payments to pharmacy benefit managers, set up by confidential deals. CVS refuted the allegations and said in a statement...that it’s pleased the suit has been dismissed..."The complaint contained numerous demonstrably false assertions that a reasonable pre-filing investigation by the law firm would have discovered,"..."As such, we are pleased that the suit has been voluntarily dismissed.",,,"We plan to refile the lawsuit against CVS related to its generic drug pricing scheme promptly,"..."Our case against Walgreens was not dismissed and will remain on file until we achieve a just outcome for consumers."

As early as January 1, Oregon pharmacists will be permitted to prescribe and dispense drugs and devices listed on a formulary to be established by the state board of pharmacy under a bill recently signed by Governor Katherine Brown...The formulary, according to the new law, may contain such "post-diagnostic" items as diabetic testing supplies, smoking-cessation aids, epinephrine autoinjectors, albuterol inhalers, rapid strep tests, and spacers for inhalers...Other possibilities mentioned in the law are discharge medications during transitions of care and emergency refills of insulin..."Nothing about this is new territory," said Michael E. Millard, cochair of the Oregon Society of Health-System Pharmacists...Legal and Regulatory Affairs Committee, in explaining why the prescribing bill passed the legislature on the first try...the bill builds on past legislation and advances pharmacy practice a step further...