National e-Prescribing Patient Safety Initiatve, HIMSS and more

Last week while visiting New York City, I sat down for an interview with Peter Cervieri at ScribeMedia.  Peter and I first met last December at the Consumer Health World conference in Washington, D.C.  Peter had invited me to visit him at ScribeMedia's Manhattan headquarters the next time I was in the city, and so I did.  I toured ScribeStudios and then Peter and I chatted for 30 minutes or so about some of our initiatives at Microsoft.  We also videotaped the interview so Peter could share it with his "viewers".  We talked about the National e-Prescribing Patient Safety Initiatiive (NEPSI) sponsored by a consortium of leading technology companies including Microsoft, payor organizations and academic medical centers across the nation.  NEPSI makes an easy-to-use and secure web services e-prescribing solution from Microsoft partner Allscripts available free of charge to every physician in America. Adoption of e-prescribing by all physicians is essential to help reduce medication errors that according to a report from the Institute of Medicine injure more than 700,000 Americans each year.

We also talked about a range of other topics related to healthcare IT and Microsoft's role in the industry.  I hope you enjoy the show.

Next Saturday, I'm off to HIMSS in New Orleans where I hope to see a lot of you.  If you are in the neighborhood of the Microsoft booth on Monday or Tuesday, I hope you'll drop by and say hello.  I hope you'll also be around for Steve Ballmer's keynote on Monday morning.  I think you'll be inspired by his message and our vision for higher quality, safer, more effective and satisfying health and healthcare made possible by technology.

Bill Crounse, MD              Worldwide Health Director                 Microsoft