Federal EHR speeds up prescriptions for traveling Veteran

It shapes up as a stressful scenario: a Veteran traveling beyond the reach of their local VA hospital or clinic realizes they left one of their prescriptions at home. While traveling Veterans facing such a predicament have long been able to get help from the closest VA pharmacy, the process has been time consuming. But, as one Veteran recently discovered on a trip to Ohio, the Federal Electronic Health Record (EHR) is changing that, accelerating the steps for dispensing medications to Veterans away from home.

In “The Federal EHR: Real Stories. Real Impact – Episode 4,” Makenzy Carter, clinical pharmacist at VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, Toledo Community-Based Outpatient Clinic (CBOC), recounts how utilizing the Federal EHR—at the time, only recently deployed at her facility—put prescriptions in the hands of a traveling Veteran in a matter of minutes.

“During the first week of (Federal EHR) rollout, we had a traveling Veteran. He was in town visiting for a funeral, unfortunately,” Carter explained. “And the last thing on his mind was his medications. So, he left them all at home.”

When the Veteran walked into Carter’s pharmacy, her initial reaction was to refer him to the hospital’s registration desk to begin the necessary paperwork for a prescription pick-up.

“Then I remembered we had the Federal EHR, and luckily his home VA also had the Federal EHR,” she said.

With both VA facilities on the Federal EHR system, Carter could quickly pull up the Veteran’s records and confirm his prescriptions. “I didn’t have to send him to registration,” she noted. “We were able to get him checked in, his medications processed, filled, and on his way within about 15 minutes.”

The expeditious process was an eye-opener for both Carter and the visiting Veteran.

“He repeatedly kept saying, are you sure that’s all you need?” Carter added. “So, it really was a perfect example of a time that the Federal EHR made this very smooth. It’s one less thing that he really had to worry about in this visit.”