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Surescripts was founded in 2001 by the pharmacy and pharmacy benefit manager industries to replace paper prescriptions with an electronic solution (e-prescribing). Since then, both the broader healthcare industry and the federal government recognized a critical need to facilitate secure electronic communication between healthcare providers across the country. Leveraging the infrastructure they already had in place to connect pharmacies, care providers, benefit managers, and technology providers, Surescripts was able to expand the scope of their network operations and make it possible for healthcare partners to electronically exchange other kinds of secure health information. Today, Surescripts connects to over 700 electronic health record applications used by nearly one million healthcare professionals and impacting more than 270 million insured lives in the United States. According to a national progress report released by the company in 2014, over 6 billion transactions were conducted over the Surescripts network in 2013.

Through their network, Surescripts has helped to reduce the risk of adverse drug events amongst patients, while eliminating ambiguity that can come from hand written prescriptions.

Early Years
In February 2001, the then three largest pharmacy benefit manager companies, AdvancePCS (later acquired by CareMark Rx, now CVS Caremark), Express Scripts and Medco Health Solutions formed RxHub to serve as their e-prescribing gateway. In response, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and that National Community Pharmacists Association formed “SureScripts”. The company was headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia and focused on developing a gateway and utility between prescribers and pharmacists. In developing their system, they followed the NCPDP SCRIPT standard, which created a standard specifically for electronic prescriptions. The use of this standard amongst prescribers and pharmacy computer vendors ensures a simple way to facilitate connectivity across the Surescripts network. In 2005, Secretary of Health & Human Services, Michael Leavitt arranged for an Executive Order under President George W. Bush to create AHIC – the American Health Information Community. Kevin Hutchinson, Surescripts founding president and CEO, represented the interests of ancillary services that supported physician decision-making, such as the pharmacy and medical laboratory communities, and played an important role in developing standards and interoperability that helped drive adoption of health IT. Surescripts also worked closely with Secretary Leavitt to address key issues, including the obligation to protect privacy and security; and the prerequisite of creating a national infrastructure for the exchange of health information based on recognized standards. Back in 2003, Surescripts was recognized by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for their selection of the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP) SCRIPT standard as the foundation of our electronic prescribing network. The use of this standard among pharmacies on the network was cited by CMS as an example of industry experience necessary to recommend to CMS the NCPDP SCRIPT standard as a “foundation standard” under the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. In 2005, the first proposed foundation standards were released for Medicare Part D e-prescribing. By 2007, e-prescribing was legal in all 50 states. However, electronic prescribing of controlled substances (EPCS) was still not permitted by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) at that time. Surescripts worked closely with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island to help change the rules governing controlled substances. Sen. Whitehouse testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee and urged the DEA to publish a timeframe to revise federal rules governing dispensation of controlled substances. In 2008, the DEA proposed a rule to allow EPCS. Surescripts provided comments on the proposed rule, and the final rule was eventually adopted in 2010. Surescripts continued to work closely with state legislatures to allow EPCS. Controlled substances can now be prescribed electronically in 49 states and Washington, D.C.

On June 30, 2008, SureScripts and RxHub merged in a 50-50 partnership. Combined, the two organizations' services provide ambulatory care doctors "richer" information at the point of care, said Surescripts’ former CEO, Rick Ratliff. That includes combined data about patients' prescription history via paid claims - which was information that RxHub provided via its network - and also information about prescriptions that are dispensed and renewed at the retail pharmacy, which was data that SureScripts provided.

Two weeks later, Congress passed the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act. The act aimed to induce physicians to e-prescribe with a mix of financial incentives and penalties. In 2009, e-prescribing was embedded in the incentives that are part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The stimulus law specifies e-prescribing by office-based physicians as one of the criteria for “meaningful use” of an electronic health record that physicians must meet to qualify for IT subsidy payments of up to $48,400 under Medicare and as high as $63,750 under Medicaid. By 2013, the Surescripts network routed more than one billion e-prescriptions, representing 58% of all eligible prescriptions. This represents a 32% increase in volume over 2012 and almost double the total in 2011.

Network Expansion
Dating back to 2004, President George W. Bush issued an Executive Order establishing a national goal that by 2014, a standard for interoperable health information would be set. Both the healthcare industry and federal government recognized a critical need for a national health information network to facilitate secure electronic communication between healthcare providers – such as the network Surescripts had established for e-prescribing. The lack of such a network limited the potential for providers to electronically exchange clinical information to improve the quality of patient care. In response to this need, Surescripts ultimately expanded the scope of its network operations to enable healthcare providers, pharmacists, PBMs, EHRs, HIEs, and IDNs to electronically exchange clinical messages beyond e-prescriptions within a care community and across the country. As part of an ongoing effort to expand their network, Surescripts announced it was making a strategic investment in Kryptiq as part of a partnership that effectively turned the company into a full-service health care Internet service provider (HISP). In November, Surescripts acquired a minority stake in Kryptiq for $8 million. Surescripts acquired all of Kryptiq in August 2012. With Surescripts, Kryptiq has a parent company with a built-in national platform. The company's software, among other functions, manages prescription benefits programs and routes prescriptions to a patient's preferred pharmacy. It's used nationally by state health departments, hospitals and clinics, health plans and nearly all pharmacies. Shortly after the Kryptiq acquisition, Surescripts announced that Epic and NextGen were connecting to the network for clinical messaging. Both companies were already network participants for e-prescribing. In 2013 Surescripts added 19 new participants to its network, significantly increasing its national footprint as a health information service provider (HISP) that enables clinical messaging using the Direct secure messaging protocol. Most of the new members were statewide or regional health information exchanges (HIEs), but they also included a Tennessee HISP (Information Corp. of America), two EHR vendors (Cerner and Quest Diagnostics), and a big healthcare system (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center).

Ownership
Surescripts is privately owned by the founders of Surescripts and RxHub: NACDS and NCPA own 50 percent with the balance split between CVS Caremark and Express Scripts.

White Coat of Quality
Surescripts White Coat of Quality recognizes technology vendors that have embraced principles and best practices that ensure that electronic prescriptions convey to the pharmacist and the patient the clinician’s therapeutic intent in an accurate, understandable, complete, unambiguous, and efficient manner. The White Coat of Quality Award was established in 2010 as part of Surescripts’ Quality Management Program and includes the following key requirements:
 * Senior leadership commitment to a goal of zero electronic prescription content errors
 * Measurement and reporting of e-prescription content error levels
 * Implementation of software updates to reduce e-prescription content error levels
 * Communication and training for end-users on how to better utilize their e-prescribing system to reduce errors

Products
Surescripts provides a network of interoperability between pharmacies, care providers, benefit managers, and technology partners. Although the early years of the company focused on electronic prescribing, Surescripts has broadened their scope to create a network that ensures many other kinds of secure electronic health informationexchange, including, medication history, patient benefits, care summaries, and immunization data. In all 50 states, the Surescripts network enables standards-based connectivity and a broad range of health information exchange. Surescripts has received full accreditation from the Direct Trusted Agent Accreditation Program. DTAAP is an accreditation program for health information service providers (HISPs). In keeping in compliance with federal standards and regulations, Surescripts has developed a formal process for both prescribers and pharmacies to ensure that only certified software (confirmed by third-party audits) is permitted to process controlled-substance e-prescriptions via their network. Additionally, each prescription must carry a digital signature from the prescriber or a flag indicating that it has been signed must also be present before it can be allowed to be sent to pharmacies.

List of Products

 * Prescription Routing
 * Prescription Benefit (Eligibility/Formulary)
 * Medication History - Ambulatory
 * CompletEPA
 * EPCS
 * Real-Time Benefit Check
 * Rx Change
 * Cancel Rx
 * Medication History Acute
 * Medication History to Pharmacy
 * Prescription Drug Monitoring Program
 * Immunization services
 * Basic messaging
 * Record Locator & Exchange

Leadership

 * Paul Uhrig: Acting Chief Executive Officer, Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Privacy Officer
 * Kelly Broder: Senior Vice President, Human Resources
 * Mark Gingrich: Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer
 * Stephen Hall: Senior Vice President, Finance and Administration
 * Greg Hansen: Executive Vice President, Chief Customer Officer
 * JP Little: Executive Vice President, Enterprise Technology and Operations
 * Jeffrey Miller: Executive Vice President and General Manager, Clinical Network Services
 * Luis Machuca: President and CEO, Kryptiq Corporation
 * Shannon Olson: Senior Vice President, Medication Network Services
 * Ben Stuart: Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer
 * David Yakimischak: Executive Vice President and General Manager, Medication Network Services