Joel Young, MD

Joel Young, MD

With help from United Physicians, a large physician organization, Dr. Joel Young and the rest of the physicians at the Rochester Center for Behavioral Medicine in Rochester Hills, Mich., implemented an electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) system. As medical director, Dr. Young knew it was time to bring e-prescribing into the practice. It is simply the direction medicine is taking—using technology to make the physician practice more efficient and effective. Similar to many physicians, though, he had concerns about the costs and finding the time to learn the system, in addition to keeping up with other demands of the practice. However, with the support from United Physicians, and the help and enthusiasm of executive director, Jaime Saal, M.A., Dr. Young and the practice made the transition.

The AMA recently spoke with Dr. Young and Jaime Saal about their e-prescribing experiences.

AMA: What were your reasons for electing to implement an e-prescribing system?

Dr. Young: United Physicians helps fast track many different aspects of running a physician practice, including things like technology. We thought about implementing e-prescribing before, but there were always other priorities. Generally, e-prescribing is less attractive in psychiatry due to the frequency of controlled substances prescribed. The costs also made it prohibitive. But when we learned that United Physicians was helping practices obtain and implement e-prescribing systems, we decided to give it try.

AMA: How did you learn about United Physicians’ initiative?

Jaime Saal: We are always looking for ways to be more efficient, so we started researching options for e-prescribing systems. By asking other clinics we learned about the United Physicians initiative and signed up. The e-prescribing application chosen by United Physicians, Dr. First, interfaced with our practice management system (PMS), which made  the implementation easy.

AMA: How did you deploy the e-prescribing system?

Dr. Young: United Physicians put the system in place. They migrated demographic data from our practice management system and provided a laser printer and laptop. We didn’t incur any direct cost for hardware or software.

Jaime Saal: As Dr Young stated, United Physicians provided all of the technology and training. We received the hardware free. The software license fee was also waived the first year.

AMA: Did it take you long to learn the system?

Dr. Young: I trained with our executive director, Jaime, for about three hours and then started using the application.

AMA: How has e-prescribing changed your practice?

Dr. Young: E-prescribing has led to fewer prescription mistakes, and it makes our office more professional. Our staff now spends less time on the phone with pharmacies and spends more time taking care of other patient needs.

AMA: What benefits of e-prescribing do you believe are the greatest?

Dr. Young: We are far more effective and efficient.

Jaime Saal: The ability to check formularies at the point-of-care and checking for drug interactions. Specifically, making our practice safer and more efficient.

AMA: What are the key challenges?

Dr. Young: We write many prescriptions for Schedule II medications. The laws preventing the transmission of controlled substances electronically have caused a regression and, I suppose, deter many physicians from e-prescribing.

AMA: What are your future HIT plans?

Dr. Young: I think we will implement an EMR system in about two years. We are bothered by how much time and money we spend storing and looking for paper charts. We know that scanning these charts could be prohibitive, but we plan to make the transition.

Please send Dr. Young or Jaime Saal questions or comments at hit@ama-assn.org.

Visit www.rcbm.net for more information about Rochester Center for Behavioral Medicine.

(i)The American Medical Association (AMA) does not endorse the products or services referenced in this interview posting; (ii) the views presented are those of the individual physician and not the views of the AMA; and (iii) the physician has represented that the views presented are a balanced assessment by that physician of his/her personal experience and have not been prepared at the request of or for the benefit of any third party but solely to inform other interested, similarly situated physicians.