BioPlus Launches "TAP App" for Physicians to Monitor Patient Specialty Pharmacy Treatments

BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy has launched TAP App, a new proprietary, secure web-based portal that connects physicians with extensive information about their patients who are being treated through BioPlus's specialty pharmacy. This intuitive application, which can be easily accessed by doctors via their tablet or laptop at any time, allows physicians to monitor their patients from initial intake through benefit verification and shipping. In addition, outcome data, such as medication adherence issues, medication possession ratios (MPRs), adverse drug reactions (ADRs), and other interactions with patients are all quickly and easily available to physicians.

From 28 percent to 95 percent of adverse drug events can be prevented by lessening medication errors through the use of computerized monitoring systems, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. As one example, AHRQ notes that computerized medication order entry could potentially prevent up to 84% of dose, frequency, and route errors in medication use.

“Our new TAP App for physicians is right in line with AHRQ’s suggestion of leveraging technology to eliminate medication errors,” says Dr. Stephen Vogt, president and CEO of BioPlus. “Aside from the obvious benefit to patients’ health, diminishing medical errors lowers costs, especially in light of a study earlier this year in the journal Health Affairs finding that the estimated total cost of measurable medical errors in the United States is $17.1 billion annually, with the most frequent medical injuries being adverse events associated with medications. In fact, as another article in that issue noted: for every dollar spent on health care in the United States, as much as 45 cents is related to a medical mistake.”

TAP App from BioPlus serves as a time-saver for physicians, giving hours back for patient management, while putting the pharmacy chart inside the physician's office to improve communications and decrease the administrative burden of reimbursement, prescription writing, adherence monitoring, and drug list reviews.

TAP App allows physicians to:

• E-prescribe, as well as view medications dispensed and other vital data secured to their tablet or laptop
• Access patient’s progress from initial intake through benefit verification and shipping
• Login to view patient therapy assessment reports and prior authorization status
• Review outcome data, such as medication adherence issues, MPRs, ADRs, and other interactions with patients.

BioPlus has a strong history as an industry leader for improving several specialty pharmacy metrics. In addition to this latest effort to lessen medication errors through TAP App, BioPlus has been improving compliance for its patients. In tracking compliance statistics for its treatment programs, BioPlus is proud to report that the latest data, which includes more than 22,000 BioPlus patients sampled from treatment programs for hepatitis C, oncology, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, Crohn’s disease, and other conditions, shows that BioPlus achieves a 91% compliance rate at discharge. The compliance rate for retail and mail-order pharmacies is only 50%.

SOURCE: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/4/prweb9406469.htm