Veradigm (formerly Allscripts) has become the first major electronic health record vendor to join First Databank Inc.’s FDB Vela e-prescribing network.
Veradigm said it would integrate the FDB Vela ePrescribing network into its available solutions for users and partners, including its EHRs and the Veradigm ePrescribe Enterprise solution.
In 2022, FDB launched FDB Vela (pronounced Vee-la), which it describes as “a cloud-native electronic prescribing network that enables the seamless flow of critical medication prescription information, benefits verification, and clinical decision support between prescribers, payers, pharmacies, and other constituents.”
In a September 2022 interview with Healthcare Innovation, Lathe Bigler, vice president of clinical network services and general manager of FDB Vela, explained why the company thought there was room for another e-prescribing network, despite the dominance and success of Surescripts.
FDB is known for its well-adopted drug database, and Bigler noted that through this work, FDB already engages all the stakeholders in the e-prescribing process. “We work with almost all of the EHR systems, pharmacy benefit managers, payers, pharmacy retailers and pharmacy systems, so we're already very much involved and engaged in that process from a drug database perspective,” he said. “What's interesting is that as we began to engage with those customers and stakeholders around how we at FDB can provide more value to them, they actually brought up e-prescribing as a topic on several occasions. In fact, it became such a widely discussed topic that at some point we finally had to just look at whether this is something that we really should be offering to bring more value and more competition and alternative services in that space.”
While Veradigm is new to FDB Vela, the company has been a long-time user of FDB MedKnowledge, its drug database solution.
By joining FDB Vela, Veradigm said it aims to further facilitate interoperability and reduce potential friction in the prescribing process while continuing to put providers and patients at the forefront of secure and timely medication delivery.
In a statement, Veradigm President and Chief Commercial Officer Tom Langan said that joining the FDB Vela ePrescribing network “begins a new chapter in pharmacy connectivity that helps further streamline prescribing workflows while enhancing the patient experience through medication information and greater transparency into their out-of-pocket costs. Together with FDB Vela and through the Veradigm Network, we can offer our prescribers the broadest choice of pharmacies and enhanced capabilities to enable even greater patient understanding, engagement, and fully informed shared decision-making.”
“Combined, Veradigm and FDB Vela offer synergistic solutions that deliver information on care options, pharmacy choice and cost transparency that enable providers and patients to have important care conversations without distractions,” said Bigler in a statement. “By enabling this patient-focused workflow, we can promote greater medication adherence, patient engagement and optimal outcomes.”
In his interview with Healthcare Innovation, Bigler also suggested that FDB could bring innovation in terms of more advanced functionalities like better analytics and clinical decision support. “One of our core competencies is around decision support, not only from a drug database perspective. I think there are a lot of different ways we are willing to work with EHRs to improve their workflow process and how they inject information that brings better workflow and streamlines decision-making.”
