Web site to list medications of natural disaster evacuees

SureScripts on Tuesday unveiled a Web site that will allow health care workers to access the prescription information of people who live in areas impacted by natural disasters, the AP/Jackson Clarion-Ledger reports.

After an earthquake, hurricane or other disaster, representatives for the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and the National Community Pharmacists Association would decide whether to open the Web site, www.icerx.org, which would make available the prescription histories of people from zip codes in the affected areas. Emergency responders to the 2005 hurricanes said that one of the biggest health care problems they faced was providing the correct prescription drugs to evacuees who did not remember what medications they had been taking. A prototype of the current Web site, www.katrinahealth.org, was launched three weeks after Hurricane Katrina hit the gulf coast (AP/Jackson Clarion-Ledger , 4/23). Many drug store chains have their own Web sites for traveling customers, but the SureScripts program, called Rx History, will share information from major pharmacies. SureScripts spokesperson Rob Cronin said that the company's plan is eventually to expand the program from emergency-only use to routine use (Steenhuysen, Reuters, 4/24). Because of privacy concerns, the Web site will not include records of treatments for "sensitive" conditions, according to SureScripts (AP/Jackson Clarion-Ledger , 4/23).