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Effort on to get more doctors to use electronic prescriptions

October 17, 2009 By

The state’s largest system of hospitals and clinics announced an initiative this week to try and get more doctors to use an electronic system when writing prescriptions. Glen Tullman is the C-E-O of Allscripts, the company that is providing the electronic method for prescribing the medication for Iowa Health Systems. Tullman says the electronic system does more than just send and order to a pharmacy.

He says it will provide physicians with a complete medication database, prescription history and a way to write electronic prescriptions and route them to a pharmacy. Tullman says it will eliminate problems with bad handwriting, lost prescriptions and will make it easier to renew prescriptions. Tullman says the “e-prescribe” system can improve the health of patients.

Tullman says the non-partisian Institute of Medicine did a study that showed that each year seven-thousand Americans die and over 1.5 million are injured from preventable medication errors. Tullman says less than three percent of all prescriptions written in 2008 were electronic. He says that should be higher with the technology available.

He says if you took a son or daughter to the doctor for what you thought was a broken and arm and the doctor said he wouldn’t use an x-ray because it was a new technology, you would probably go to another doctor. Tullman says it should be the same way if your doctor does not want to use the electronic prescription service. The new partnership between Iowa Health System and Allscripts offers a free web-based e-prescribing option to physicians throughout Iowa.

Filed Under: Health & Medicine

Webster City group looks for paranormal

October 17, 2009 By

It’s the season for spooks and there are reports of some other-worldly activity at the Wilson Brewer Museum complex in Webster City. A group called the Spirit Paranormal Society will showcase some of its findings at the complex later this month — on Halloween night.

David Choate a spokesman for the group says, “We’re going to talk about some of the paranormal activity we found and the history of the building. We’re going to do tours and let people talk about what they feel. There’s quite a bit of paranormal activity at the Brewer Park.”

Choate and other members of the group spent the night of August 15th at the Webster City park. He says they had some unusual experiences.

“We have seen some shadow people, those figures that just look like shadows moving,” Choate says. “In the Brewer Cabin, we’ve had people touch us. The depot is a big area because we’ve actually had people move a flashlight.” He claims they have more proof the area is being visited by ghostly beings.

“We’re going to show a really good piece of video evidence that night of something just filling a room with mist and then disappearing, and we have that on video,” Choate says. The tour will take place on Saturday night, October 31st. For more information, visit the website: “spiritparanormalsociety.webs.com“.

Contributed by Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City

Filed Under: Human Interest