Emergency Responders and Public Health Officials Urged to Attend Joint Presentation from Rx Response and ICERx.org at NACCHO Public Health Preparedness Summit

Presentation Will Give Overview of Powerful Private Sector Tools Now Available to
Help Ensure Prescription Medicine Access After a Disaster

San Diego, CA……Leaders of Rx Response and ICERx.org, two powerful private sector initiatives designed to help ensure prescription drug access following a disaster, will make a joint presentation at the NACCHO Public Health Preparedness Summit in San Diego, CA, Friday, February 20, 2009. The presentation will be held at 8:30 am in the Marina 3 Room of the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina, located at 1380 Harbor Island Drive in San Diego.

Erin Mullen, R.Ph., Ph.D., the Director of Rx Response, and Borden Wilson, Vice President, Business Development of Informed Decisions, a partner organization that helped create ICERx.org, will make presentations on the capabilities of their respective programs. They will be joined by Carsten Evans, R.Ph., Ph.D., who operates a certificate program in Florida emphasizing the importance of having pharmacists involved in disaster planning and response teams.

ICERx.org was created by a collaborative of private and public organizations, including the Informed Decisions, NCPA, SureScripts-RxHub and several state Medicaid and other government agencies, for the sole purpose of providing medication history information to licensed pharmacists and prescribers who are caring for evacuees in times of disaster.

Rx Response was developed nearly 2 years ago in response to Hurricane Katrina and the threat of pandemic influenza to help ensure the continued flow of medicine to patients in a severe public health emergency.  Rx Response serves as a single point of contact for the entire pharmaceutical supply system and relies on a robust network that allows federal and state emergency management officials to communicate with Rx Response regarding pharmaceutical needs and other issues which may impact the supply system. The communications are actively monitored by all segments of the pharmaceutical supply system to ensure the fastest possible resolution. 

Both Wilson and Mullen will highlight the critical importance that pharmacy services play in helping a community and its citizens recover from a disaster. In Hurricane Gustav, nearly 1.5 million Louisianans evacuated.  ICERx.org, activated prior to Gustav landfall, assisted in helping pharmacists and physicians by providing prescription histories for evacuees to ensure the patient received the correct medication.

“We learned from the 2004 Florida hurricane season that people evacuating in the face of a pending natural disaster often don’t think to bring prescriptions with them,” said Wilson. “Through the collaboration of our partners, we have now developed this service to help ensure that patient medication histories are available for those pharmacists and physicians that are treating evacuees. Armed with this information, health care professionals will be able to effectively assist in the coordination of care and safely renew prescriptions for evacuees, while avoiding harmful prescription errors and potential drug interactions.”

The ability of Rx Response and ICERx.org to be effective rests in part on the participation of state emergency management leaders and public health officials. For ICERx.org, a state’s participation allows pharmacists and physicians to ensure the right medication is prescribed for the patient regardless of what state they evacuate to. For Rx Response, pre-disaster interaction between a state and Rx Response helps ensure the most effective interaction during a disaster.

Mullen and Wilson are encouraging all Preparedness Summit participants to attend their panel discussion to learn more about how Rx Response and ICERx.org can help public health officials and emergency management leaders more effectively meet the pharmacy needs of their citizens following a disaster.

Rx Response Contact:
Grady Forrer
(202) 835-3474
 
ICE-Rx Contact:
Lizzy Arce Feliciano
(800) 446-3324