Talk:AMDIS Response to the Federal Tamper-Resistant Rx Law

Here are some statistics from our hospital.

We have over 150 printers in our specialty ambulatory clinics and another 50+ in our ED, inpatient and day surgery areas.

We are also trying to have family centered care so the printers are in the rooms. That allows the provider to show films, records, chart and write prescriptions and send families home with educational material from their rooms. The rooms do not have space to put in larger printers with dual trays that can be locked. So to accommodate this we would have to buy 200+ printers, remodel all the rooms to allow a large printer, put up with paper jams, etc.

The flipside is that we can supply our providers with tamper resistant prescription pads. Then we can do away with electronic prescriptions and the weight and allergy checking and other decision support tools. After all the government, Leapfrog and every patient safety group does not really mean we should use electronic medication ordering to prevent errors.

Or we could try to do e-prescribing and hope the fax goes through. However we are also a tertiary referral center that includes Alaska, Montana, Idaho and Washington. I am sure we won’t have a problem ensuring fax delivery is seamless across a land mass that comprises approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of the continental United States.

And we are doing this because we believe Medicaid children are selling their amoxicillin, prednisone, diuretics and other drugs on the street?

Mark Del Beccaro, MD

Pediatrician in Chief

Chief Medical Information Officer

Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center

4800 Sandpoint Way NE

Seattle, WA 98105