Electronic Health Reporter

Healthcare interoperability and enhanced information sharing continued to improve healthcare quality, safety and cost for U.S. patients and providers, according to the Surescripts 2019 National Progress Report. The nationwide health information network processed 19.15 billion secure transactions in 2019, while connecting 1.78 million healthcare professionals and organizations with actionable patient data for 95% of the U.S. population.

“With the COVID-19 pandemic impacting patients and providers across the globe, a trusted nationwide health information network has never been more critical,” said Tom Skelton, chief executive officer of Surescripts. “In 2019, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and others across the Surescripts Network Alliance made remarkable progress transforming interactions with patients and driving significant improvements in care quality, safety and costs.”

In 2019, healthcare professionals saw the benefits of leveraging actionable patient information to enhance the prescribing process with greater automation, improved workflows, and increased price transparency. For example:

• In 2019, prescriber enablement for e-prescribing reached 79%, with 1.79 billion e-prescriptions filled, bringing the rate of e-prescribing to 80% of all prescriptions.
• The number of e-prescriptions filled for controlled substances reached 134.2 million, representing 38% of controlled substance prescriptions—up 12% from the year prior, with 49% of prescribers enabled for the technology.
• The volume of real-time benefit checks at the point of care increased by 336% with more than 250,000 prescribers using the service (a 233% increase).
• Electronic prior authorizations increased by 132%, driven by a 58% increase in provider adoption of the tool.

Further, clinicians accessed actionable patient insights to obtain a more complete picture of their patients’ care histories and make more informed care decisions. For example:

• Surescripts delivered 2.18 billion medication histories, a 19% increase, while use of Medication History for Populations increased nearly 200%.
• Record Locator & Exchange delivered 333.8 million links to clinical document locations and 143.2 million documents listing where patients had previously received care. Nearly 136,000 clinicians used the service—a 28% increase in 2019.
• In 2019, more than 648,000 individuals and organizations sent 37.7 million Clinical Direct Messages (a nearly 20% increase from 2018).

In the midst of this significant progress, Surescripts maintained network-wide uptime of approximately 99.999%, maintained HITRUST CSF Certified status for privacy, security and risk management practices, improved the networkwide Quality Index Score for e-prescription accuracy by 10%, and helped migrate most of the network to the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs’ (NCPDP) new e-prescribing standard (SCRIPT Standard Version 2017071).

Download the Surescripts 2019 National Progress Report and learn more about solutions that enhance e-prescribing and inform care decisions. Explore Intelligence in Action to read more about how the Surescripts Network Alliance is advancing healthcare.