A notice from Surescripts
We recently received a message from our vendor, Surescripts, notifying us of a potential patient safety issue related to possible inaccuracies in Medication History response messages. As we utilize the Medication History from Surescripts in gGastro®, via our connection with Dr. First, please see below the information, along with next steps, that should be taken by our clients to address this issue.
Date Received from SureScripts: November 10, 2020
Title: Potential Patient Safety Issue (PPSI-3): Inaccurate Medication History (Surescripts)
Description: Surescripts notified us that they determined that some Medication History response messages sent to Modernizing Medicine, and thereafter to certain clients, may have contained inaccurate medication history data. Surescripts indicated that this issue has been resolved, and that they are not aware of any harm to any patient. In addition, Surescripts indicated that no protected health information (PHI) was exposed.
Surescripts described the origin of the issue as follows:
Surescripts has determined that this issue occurred when certain pharmacies changed their pharmacy software system or aggregator which inadvertently assigned patient IDs that had previously been assigned to other patients. As a result, when a prescriber sent a Medication History request for one patient, the Surescripts pharmacy fill database may have sent a response that included medication history data for two patients.
Scope of Impact: Surescripts has indicated that they believe this issue may have impacted medication history data sent between July 20 and October 29, 2020. However, out of an abundance of caution and given the potential seriousness of this issue, we are providing this information to all clients. We have also received from Surescripts a list of patients identified by them as being potentially impacted by this issue. If any patient of your practice is included on the list received from Surescripts, we will provide you with such list in a separate message via Salesforce.
Recommended Actions: We strongly encourage all clients to carefully review and verify medication quantities and all other prescription information during the medication reconciliation process, and make any necessary corrections as you deem necessary. As always, clinicians should use sound professional and clinical judgment in all clinical decision making. We further strongly recommend that you review the medication history collected for patients between July 20 and October 29, 2020, and make any adjustments to prescriptions written during such period that may be appropriate based on the patient’s corrected medication history.
Surescripts Actions: Surescripts indicates that it identified this issue on October 28 while researching a Support case and that, immediately upon learning of the issue, Surescripts implemented a fix to exclude pharmacy fill data provided by pharmacies displaying this issue in any subsequent Medication History response messages. Surescripts has assured us that it is working to implement effective measures to eliminate any potential for this type of issue to occur in the future, including updating our certification guide and working with pharmacy customers to always provide unique patient IDs.
Modernizing Medicine Gastroenterology is committed to helping you deliver the safest care to all of your patients and we apologize for the inconvenience this may cause your practice. If you have any questions concerning this information, please contact our Support Team.