Rx software-data linkups ease verification process

FORT WORTH, Texas — Unveiling its second pharmacy automation alliance in the space of a few weeks, integrated pharmacy systems provider PDX announced a new partnership in December with Health Market Science, a leading source for health provider data and solutions. Both firms said the goal is to make the prescription verification process safer and more accurate for dispensing pharmacists.


Driving the joint venture is a new, co-developed automation process that both firms said will provide pharmacies with real-time prescriber validation solutions when dispensing prescriptions. To that end, PDX and HMS will provide “advanced point-of-service compliance solutions” that link the PDX Pharmacy System with HMS’ Prescriber MasterFile.


It means that pharmacists using PDX software will have instant access to up-to-date information on prescribing physicians, including licensure, professional status, sanctions and Drug Enforcement Administration prescriptive authority. Integrating PDX’s pharmacy system with the HMS database “mitigates the risk of submitting an invalid prescriber identifier or submitting a prescription for a state or federally sanctioned prescriber,” according to PDX.


The result, both companies said, will be improved and simpler verification of prescriptions as part of the dispensing process. “Each pharmacy transaction is reviewed in real time to determine if the authorizing prescriber’s license and credentials are valid and appropriate for the drug being dispensed,” they noted.


In the future, PDX’s Enterprise Pharmacy System also will be linked to the new verification process, PDX spokesman Todd Whitely said.


Lending urgency to the effort, PDX president and CEO Jeff Farris said, is “the intense regulatory scrutiny at the state and federal level” over the prescription dispensing process. “We had to make our solution as effective as possible during the filling of a prescription so pharmacy staff could mitigate risk without compromising customer satisfaction,” Farris explained. “By integrating our systems with the most up-to-date sanctions data available on the market from Health Market Science, we can help our pharmacy customers address the compliance challenges.”


The latest marriage of powerful dispensing technology with doctor verification data came just weeks after PDX announced a similar partnership with Healthcare Data Solutions (see the Dec. 13, 2010, issue of Drug Store News).