Zix Corporation To Provide Perdue Farms’ Healthcare Clinics with e-Prescribing Technology
Zix Corporation (ZixCorp(TM)), (Nasdaq:ZIXI), a global provider of protection, management, and delivery solutions for electronic communications, today announced an agreement to provide its PocketScript e-prescribing solution to all of the employee ambulatory outpatient clinics operated nationwide by Perdue Farms Incorporated, the nation’s fourth-largest poultry producer with over 18,000 employees and annual sales of $2.5 billion. PocketScript will enable Perdue’s Wellness Center physicians to create electronic prescriptions more quickly and efficiently than paper-based prescriptions. The system enables physicians to identify drug-to-drug interactions, have access to a drug reference guide with more than 85,000 compounds, perform real time formulary checking, and review drug dispense history, while providing an electronic link to retail and mail-order pharmacies.
“We’re committed to providing our employees with top-quality healthcare at our clinics,” said Dr. Roger Merrill, corporate medical director for Perdue Farms. “By implementing the PocketScript solution, we can improve patient safety by minimizing the chance of medication errors, increasing the productivity of our physicians, and reducing the amount spent on prescription drugs.”
Moving the process from paper prescriptions to an electronic platform can greatly increase the safety and efficiency of the process. A 1999 Institute of Medicine report cited medical errors — including those related to improperly prescribed medications — as the eighth leading cause of death for Americans, more than motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS.
The solution will be deployed on a combination of BlackBerry(R) smart phones, Pocket PC devices, and via a Web browser, depending on the preference of the physician. The PocketScript e-prescribing application can operate on virtually any handheld PDA or Web browser.
“Perdue Farms is on the front line of U.S. companies that are leveraging cost-effective and practical solutions to increase healthcare safety while managing prescription drug costs,” said Daniel S. Nutkis, vice president of Care Delivery Solutions for ZixCorp. “Although Perdue Farms is only deploying a small number of e-prescribing devices, this contract represents another acknowledgement of the practicality, effectiveness, and benefits of e-prescribing and more specifically our solution.
In 2001, Tufts Health Plan conducted a study to measure the effectiveness of e-prescribing within its network of physicians. The study illustrated that by using the PocketScript solution there was a 30 percent reduction in calls between physicians and pharmacists and a decrease in prescriptions being rejected due to illegibility and drug interactions. This represents a savings of up to two hours per prescriber and affiliated staff, and a savings of nearly one hour per pharmacist per day spent on prescription related issues. Another key finding was an improvement in patient safety. According to the survey, patient safety errors were reduced by 8.93 per physician per year.
About Zix Corporation
Zix Corporation (ZixCorp(TM)), through its Care Delivery Solutions group, is a trusted provider of solutions for e-prescribing and electronic prescription management. By offering care delivery services, ZixCorp enables physicians and payors to streamline the prescription process, maximize patient safety, and optimize operational efficiency. ZixCorp e-communication services enrich the doctor/patient relationship though easy-to-use technologies with convenient send-from-anywhere capability. For more information, visit http://www.zixcorp.com/caredel.