CVS Caremark has announced an agreement with Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions to replace its own e-prescribing solution with the Allscripts model.

The agreement with Allscripts, a Chicago-based provider of e-prescribing and electronic health record solutions, is expected to assist the nation's largest pharmacy healthcare provider in supporting its payer and employer clients and driving e-prescribing throughout their networks.

“Electronic prescribing is a proven technology that can improve health outcomes by reducing medication errors, leading to lower healthcare costs,” said Glen Tullman, Allscripts' CEO.

CVS Caremark, based in Woonsocket, R.I., will transition providers using the company’s iScribe e-prescribing tool to the new Allscripts e-prescribing tool, then retire the iScribe solution.

CVS officials said this could be a first step toward adoption of a full electronic health record, which provides e-prescribing capabilities and automation of other everyday clinical tasks. Under the agreement, Allscripts will offer providers an upgrade to a full EHR, which officials say would also help them qualify for “meaningful use” of IT and incentive funds allocated under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Providers who qualify for incentive funds in the first stage stand to gain between $44,000 and $64,000 beginning in 2011. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also provides financial incentives for e-prescribing under the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act.

“This represents a natural progression of our work in the expanding e-prescribing industry,” said Troyen Brennan, MD, executive vice president and CMO of CVS Caremark. “We helped define this market through our participation as one of the founders of the Surescripts network, which connects prescribers to critical prescribing information and the pharmacy, and as an early provider of e-prescribing tools. Working directly with Allscripts in this next phase will strengthen our ability to deliver scalable e-prescribing solutions, which include valuable information, to meet our clients’ business and clinical goals.”