User experiences with pharmacy benefit manager data at the point of care

OBJECTIVE: MedsInfo-ED is a model health information exchange project for a network of emergency departments (EDs) in the state of Massachusetts. In this initiative, claims data from pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) were made available at the point of care to clinicians in the EDs. We performed a qualitative assessment of respondents' experiences with MedsInfo-ED. METHODS: The assessment occurred at three pilot site EDs after implementation of MedsInfo-ED. A semi-structured interview instrument was used to collect information on strengths and weaknesses of the intervention. RESULTS: Respondents generally felt that MedsInfo-ED improved their knowledge of patients' medications. However, overall, the respondents did not believe that MedsInfo-ED decreased the time required to obtain a medication list. Workflow integration of the application differed among the three hospital sites in order to best fit their department needs. Important additional information desired by the respondents included psychiatric and HIV medications, mail order medications and medications dispensed in other countries. Suggestions for improvement included integrating the patient consent process into the workflow as well as improving medication list outputs. CONCLUSIONS: The integration of PBM data at the point of care may help improve access to and completeness of patient medication histories, although such systems need to be carefully designed and implemented.