NCPDP Foundation

Our goal is to advance health information technology (HIT) standards that improve the use of electronic communication which enables health information to be shared timely and accurately. To this end, the NCPDP Foundation funds research that demonstrates in-workflow capabilities and advancement of interoperability for healthcare providers. This allows you and your care providers to make better informed health decisions.

The Foundation is funding research right now with Johns Hopkins Medical Center to prove the value of using an ePrescribing “cancel prescription” message that allows physicians to immediately and quickly send an electronic message to your pharmacy to discontinue filling a prescription. This is especially important when your physician has determined that a medication is no longer useful for you and potentially harmful for you to continue to take. When the electronic transaction is not used, rarely does the physician call the pharmacy to discontinue the medication, relying on the patient to stop taking it. The pharmacy then continues to fill the prescription, which is potentially challenging for older patients that are on many medications and can be confused about what therapy to stop or continue.

Another example, is the ability to demonstrate research of standards-based information and protocols that expand the pharmacist role to order and administer FDA authorized COVID-19 Test.

The organization currently funds research projects and proofs of concepts up to $200,000 annually as approved by our Board of Trustees. These products range from research to Public Service Videos (PSV) that identifies the value of NCPDP Standards to improve in work-flow capability and interoperability that improves patient safety and healthcare outcomes. The following provides a link to our newly release PSV:
https://youtu.be/tj3eunOAsec

The Foundations CancelRx projects with Johns Hopkins and the University of Wisconsin health system proved by prescribers using this underutilized ePrescribing message which electronically in Real-Time sends a message to pharmacies to stop the dispensing of medications to patient’s lives could be saved. We know through studies when a doctor’s office intended to communicate to pharmacies the intended discountenance o fa patients’ medication by phone or fax if often did not occur. When grantees implemented this real-time CancelRX transaction in w workflow the canceling of a medication happened nearly 100% of the time preventing millions of unintended dispensing of medications to patients, including Opioids.

In another grant to John Hopkins it was demonstrated a new NCPDP transaction standard (Real-Time Pharmacy Benefit) which in real-time checks the intended prescribed medication against the patient’s prescription insurance to validate coverage and possible alternate lower price options. The project demonstrated not only that the price returned by the payers we over 98% accurate but alerted the prescriber ahead of time if a medication wasn’t covered, the pharmacy wasn’t covered or required a prior authorization. This not only prevented delays in getting patient their needed and preventing cost surprises at the pharmacy causing prescription abandonment but saved the patient on average $21.40.

The Foundation is in the process of awarding a grant to demonstrate that the HL7/NCPDP Pharmacist Electronic Care Plan will allow for the exchange of information between providers of care to optimize medication-related decision to support patient adherence to medication regimens both within a healthcare setting and when a patient moves between healthcare settings. This grant intends to show that by standardization information used in this form will promote interoperability; support a comprehensive, multi-discipline longitudinal care plan; create information suitable for reuse in quality measurement, public health, research, and lower healthcare costs.

Funded two projects for Healthcare Ready to improve and expand their Rx Open tool which allows for providers and patients to find the nearest open pharmacy when a patient has been displaced from their homes during a natural disaster. This funding also supported the creating of a research report to emphasize the work that pharmacies do to strengthen and expand public-private partnerships and develop resources to enhance preparedness and response both during disasters and the steady state.