RICHFIELD, Ohio, Sept. 13, 2012 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IQware Solutions is pleased to announce that IQware MTM has been selected by the Tennessee Pharmacists Research and Education Foundation (TPREF) as its documentation system for a new and innovative pharmacist-provided patient care program focusing on patients with diabetes in Tennessee. This program was developed by TPREF and is supported by a generous grant from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Tennessee Health Foundation. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Tennessee Health Foundation provided this grant to TPREF to explore innovative new methods of delivering diabetes care to patients and to curb the financial impact this disease has on the health care system.
"TPREF is extremely pleased to form this new partnership with IQWare," Dr. Baeteena Black, Executive Director of the Tennessee Pharmacists Association, states, "as we work together to improve the way in which patient care services are delivered by pharmacists and to ultimately improve patient health outcomes and quality and reduce the burden of unnecessary diabetes-related costs to our health care system."
The Documentation System:
IQware MTM was selected by TPREF because of its security, flexibility and interoperability, audit ability and ease of use. Additionally, IQWare MTM helps to facilitate the pharmacist becoming the primary point of contact for patients and other health care providers regarding management of their chronic diabetes care. This system allows pharmacists to document patient care interventions, formulate treatment plans and recommendations, and communicate goals of therapy and treatment plans with patients and/or caregivers, other health care providers, and the patient's health plan.
"Effective development, utilization, and management of a secure, user-friendly documentation system," Dr. Black continues, "is essential to the successful delivery of patient care services by pharmacists. IQWare MTM, with its web-based documentation system, provides pharmacists with the ability to accurately document and communicate information electronically within a secure system to other health care providers, health plans, and most importantly, to the patient. IQWare MTM also possesses a level of customizability rarely seen in today's health information technology arena."
The Program:
Tennessee consistently ranks in the top tier of states in terms of adult patients with the diagnosis of diabetes. The most recent estimates from the Kaiser Family Foundation indicate that the percentage of patients in Tennessee that have ever been told by a doctor they have diabetes is 11.3%, which is nearly 3 percentage points higher than the national average. The primary goal of this program is to improve patient safety and health outcomes for Tennesseans suffering from diabetes by increasing patient access to essential diabetes care services and ultimately improving health outcomes and quality of care. Patients at the greatest risk for worsening disease progression and complex medication therapy regimens are encouraged to participate and receive essential diabetes-related patient care services, including Medication Therapy Management (MTM) services, diabetes self-management education, CLIA-waived testing, vaccinations and administration, and routine tracking and monitoring of essential markers in quality, patient satisfaction, and patient knowledge.
This program seeks to establish a standard for pharmacist-provided patient care services for diabetes and is designed for any pharmacist, regardless of their practice setting. Participating pharmacists must complete advanced training in diabetes management and provision of diabetes-related patient care services and meet the required credentialing standards necessary to provide these services. Once credentialed, pharmacists will work with local physicians, mid level practitioners, nurses, dietitians, and other key providers of diabetes-related care to increase coordination and communication in order to improve care. Pharmacists, widely recognized as the medication therapy experts, are naturally aligned with patients and/or caregivers, other health care providers, local employer groups, health departments, and community partnerships to manage patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes.
About TPA and TPREF:
The Tennessee Pharmacists Association is comprised of pharmacists from every practice setting including community, health-system, long-term care, academia, industry, consulting and more. The mission of TPA is to represent the profession of pharmacy as an integral component of the health care delivery system to entities outside the profession; develop standards of practice which insure delivery of quality pharmaceutical care as a means of protecting and enhancing the public health; promote the enhancement of knowledge, ethics and skills of pharmacists; and insure the economic and professional success of pharmacists in all practice settings.
The Tennessee Pharmacists Research and Education Foundation is a non- profit entity dedicated to advancing the profession of pharmacy through research and education initiatives.
About IQware:
The IQware Health Care Information System (HCIS)—including Medication Therapy Management and Health Information Exchange—is designed to work cooperatively with your existing health care IT systems. This advanced software platform prevents the culture shock that often accompanies the typical "IT improvement" in the health care industry. Using a patented configuration process (US #7,322,028; others pending)
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