DrFirst to Provide Rcopia ePrescribing to Physicians Through the BCBS NC ePrescribeSM Initiative | DrFirst

Rockville, MD—DrFirst announced today that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (BCBSNC), the state’s largest health insurer, has chosen DrFirst’s award-winning Rcopia electronic prescribing solution for a collaborative program that will target 1,000 physicians to promote the adoption and use of electronic prescribing technology. The focus of the program is on improving patient safety, reducing costs and improving the overall quality of care in the delivery of prescription drug benefits in the state of North Carolina. Electronic prescribing helps accomplish this through increased decision support for providers at the point of prescribing and better communication and connectivity between physicians, pharmacies and payer organizations.

In the first phase of the program, DrFirst will recruit 500 high prescribing providers selected by BCBSNC and issue DrFirst Rcopia ePrescribing licenses, handheld PDA devices, and WiFi wireless network hardware. To further enhance rapid adoption, DrFirst will also offer a full patient demographic data upload, training, implementation, and workflow consulting services to participating practices.

“We know that prescription management can be complicated and time-consuming for the physician and the patient,” said Dr. Robert T. Harris, BCBSNC chief medical officer. “Electronic prescribing significantly simplifies the process and lets doctors check for adverse drug interactions or allergies at the point of prescribing, which improves patient safety and enhances efficiency. It also prompts consideration of generic drugs where appropriate, which will ultimately lower health care costs.”

DrFirst will provide its Rcopia Insight reporting tool and consulting services to deliver deep analysis of the actual results of the program and its impact in key areas. The program will evaluate success based on the ability of electronic prescribing to enhance patient safety through decreased adverse drug events, increased formulary compliance and improved efficiencies in the prescription writing process. Improvements in these areas are expected to lower health care costs while improving the general quality of care.

“We applaud Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina for recognizing the value and power of electronic prescribing and for their commitment to ensure that physicians realize the many benefits that our system brings to the health care community,” said G. Cameron Deemer, senior VP and GM of DrFirst.

DrFirst’s Rcopia is an end-to-end electronic prescribing system that manages the prescription writing process electronically by connecting physicians to critical patient information and key health care stakeholders at the point of prescribing. Rcopia delivers a patient’s insurance information, medication history, allergies and pharmacy preferences to physicians at the point of care. In addition to these capabilities, Rcopia was chosen for its ability to share data between physicians in order to improve continuity of care along with its ability to tightly interface with other systems such as electronic medical record (EMR) and practice management systems (PMS).

Physicians can use DrFirst Rcopia via the Internet and on handheld devices. True mobility is delivered using the Rcopia PDA allows physicians anytime/anywhere access to patient information and prescription writing functionality whether connected or disconnected to the Internet.

About BCBSNC

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina is a leader in delivering innovative health care products, services and information to more than 3.3 million members, including approximately 638,000 served on behalf of other Blue Plans. For 72 years, the company has served its customers by offering health insurance at a competitive price and has served the people of North Carolina through support of community organizations, programs and events that promote good health. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Access BCBSNC online at www.bcbsnc.com.

DrFirst also provides leading edge secure messaging platforms for physicians, hospitals and EMR/EHR vendors.