Onmark Enhances Online Physician Resources

"In today's healthcare environment, there is tremendous pressure on physicians to provide high-quality, evidence-based care, while simultaneously running an efficient and profitable practice," stated Kim Bergstrom, Chief Clinical Officer of McKesson Specialty Care Solutions. "The resources available through Onmark are specifically designed to support community-based providers' success from a clinical, financial and operational perspective. They can be used individually or in combination throughout the entire patient treatment cycle."

Created by McKesson Specialty Care Solutions' Clinical Services team, which has over 80 years of combined experience, Onmark's suite of online resources encompasses four key elements of patient care. New and enhanced offerings for each phase include:

1. Treatment Decision-Making: Enhanced care pathways provide guidance and references for specific episodes of care. Pathways can easily be incorporated into an electronic medical record (EMR) for treatment decision support or can be used standalone.
   
   
2. Regimen Selection: New drug treatment order forms, including chemotherapy order forms, improve clinical efficiency and reduce errors by documenting all regimen components including supportive care and monitoring parameters. Each order form is evidence-based and literature-supported, making prior authorization requirements easy to meet.
   
   
3. Therapy Administration: The IV Compatibility Chart, a new chemotherapy mixing and compatibility tool, helps staff understand how to handle, mix and administer drugs to support drug safety. New Risk Evaluation & Mitigation Strategy (REMS) tools are available for the practice to use to manage physician and patient compliance to REMS program requirements.
   
   
4. Patient Education: 328 downloadable patient education handouts are written at the drug and regimen level for practices to provide to patients that undergo treatment. Patient financial responsibility reports in Onmark Regimen Profiler™ help patients understand the potential out-of-pocket costs for different therapeutic options and make informed treatment decisions.

Onmark Regimen Profiler has been enhanced to support regimen standardization. This web-based tool, which provides detailed clinical and financial information for over 300 regimens, is used by over 500 practices nationwide. A new report allows practices to tie regimen utilization across multiple sites to the cost and reimbursement of the regimens that are used. This report can then be used to review various scenarios as the practice looks to standardize regimens across different sites. In addition, regimen detail reports now include national compendia and Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approval status of all drugs, rolled up to the regimen level, for easy determination of payment.

"Using Onmark Regimen Profiler for patient counseling and tracking adherence to guidelines through Lynx Mobile™ keeps us ahead of the curve in how we practice,” shares Carol Murtaugh, administrator for Hematology & Oncology Consultants, PC in Omaha, NE. “These innovative tools differentiated our practice to several affiliated hospital systems that are working to create 'accountable care organizations', a concept that will become increasingly important in the era of healthcare reform."

Enhanced Tools Address Current Market Dynamics
Onmark's online resources address current market dynamics including the move toward evidence-based treatment, greater clinical efficiency and more proactive communication between providers and patients. Used in combination, the tools deliver even greater value; for example:

• Payors are increasingly tying reimbursement to the use of evidence-based treatment standards. Onmark's suite of 48 cancer diagnosis and supportive care treatment guidelines, combined with efficacy and side effect comparison tables and care pathways, provide all of the evidence needed to support a robust regimen standardization program that includes the work-up, treatment and monitoring of a disease and specific treatment setting.
  
  
• With declining reimbursement, physicians are seeing more patients and working harder than ever. New drug treatment order forms enhance physician productivity by taking the guesswork out of regimen-related drug dosing, supportive care requirements and monitoring parameters. Combined with regimen-based patient education handouts and patient financial responsibility reports, a practice can more efficiently and safely order regimen-based therapy, inform the patient about the regimen from both a clinical and financial perspective and begin treatment.
  

"At each step of treatment, physicians have a number of factors to consider that impact both the practice and the patient," said Mike Cunningham, Pharm D, vice president and general manager of GPO & Information Services for McKesson Specialty Care Solutions. “Our goal is to consistently deliver enhanced solutions that keep Onmark members on the cutting edge of evolving market dynamics."

About Onmark
Onmark, a McKesson Specialty Care Solutions company, is a leading national group purchasing organization (GPO) for community-based practices with more than 3000 members representing over 4,800 physicians and in excess of $8 billion in annual drug purchases. Through strategic relationships with McKesson Corporation, pharmaceutical companies and industry experts, Onmark provides its members with access to a full portfolio of competitive contracts for pharmaceutical products and medical/surgical supplies, the most aggressive pricing available through McKesson, practice management resources, clinical tools and educational programs. For information about the products, services and programs available to Onmark members, visit www.onmarkservices.com.

About McKesson and McKesson Specialty Care Solutions
McKesson Corporation, currently ranked 15th on the FORTUNE 500, is a healthcare services and healthcare information technology company dedicated to helping its customers deliver high-quality healthcare by reducing costs, streamlining processes, and improving the quality and safety of patient care. McKesson has been in continuous operation for more than 175 years, making it the longest-operating company in healthcare today. Over the course of its history, McKesson has grown by providing pharmaceutical and medical-surgical supply management across the spectrum of care; healthcare information technology for hospitals, physicians, homecare and payors; hospital and retail pharmacy automation; and services for manufacturers and payors designed to improve outcomes for patients. A division of McKesson Corporation, McKesson Specialty Care Solutions including Onmark delivers the services manufacturers, payors and providers need to ensure specialty pharmaceutical products, coordinated reimbursement and clinical services are available to patients with complex diseases. For more information on McKesson, visit http://www.mckesson.com.

PR Contact

Toni Eberhardt
480-663-4108
toni.eberhardt@mckesson.com