Customize PCC eRx Alerts and Warnings

PCC eRx is set up to be very conservative by default. As you prescribe, PCC eRx will alert you to any drug-to-drug interactions or allergy warnings, and other contraindications for the selected medication.

You can adjust these alerts to meet the true needs of your practice. You can turn them down a notch, turn them off, or customize who sees which type of alerts at your practice.

You can also add a custom medication warning, with information that you want your providers to see when they prescribe a certain drug, such as an alert that the selected drug is very expensive, or that certain insurance companies don’t cover it.

Safety Alerts

To work with eRx Safety Alerts, open the PCC eRx queue, or the PCC eRx section of a patient’s chart, and click “Administration”.

Note: You must be a PCC eRx Administrator to proceed. For help, contact your PCC Client Advocate.

From the Administration window, click on “Application Administration”, and then select “Safety Checking”.

You will see a list of all the safety alerts that occur in PCC eRx.

You can hover your mouse over any item in the list to see a tool tip showing how it works and what it does, so you can decide whether or not that alert is important to your practice’s workflow and safety while prescribing.

The alerts are sorted into categories, and you can turn any of these alerts on or off for your whole practice, or just for certain roles at your practice. For some alerts, you can set a severity level for when the warning should trigger.

Turn Off a Safety Alert

If there are certain types of alerts that nobody in your practice finds useful, you can turn them off completely.

For example, when prescribing Schedule II drugs, your staff may not need a pop-up warning letting them know that Methylphenidate and Concerta are in the same class. Some practices may find this more distracting than helpful.

To shut off an alert, simply uncheck the checkbox for the alert.

Your users will no longer see these pop-up alerts.

Restrict a Safety Alert to Certain Roles

If only some of your staff need to see certain alerts, you can specify that only certain PCC eRx roles will see each alert.

For example, perhaps your practice’s providers don’t need to see duplicate drug class warnings, but your nurses or clinical staff would still appreciate being alerted.

Click on “[show roles]” and then click on roles to turn them off (or back on again, as needed).

Only roles highlighted in bold green will see pop-up alerts for this category of safety checking.

Wait - What Does that Role Do Again?: Remember – when PCC eRx says “Mid-Level Provider” that means someone who can create and send prescriptions, while “Clinical Staff” can’t. Read the reference guide in the PCC eRx User Access article on learn.pcc.com

Edit the Severity Level for an Alert

A few alerts have different levels of severity available: You will see that these alerts have numbers beneath them, to indicate which severity level they are currently set to.

Click on “[view comment]” next to the alert item, to see an explanation for what each threshold number means.

Once you determine the level your practice needs, select the appropriate number from the drop-down list and click “Update Value”.

Severity levels are available for the “Drug Food Severity Level”, “Drug Disease Checking”, and “Drug-Drug Interaction Checking” alerts.

You should now understand how to adjust PCC eRx’s built-in Safety Alerts. You can turn them on or off, or adjust their severity or which types of prescribers will see those safety messages.

Custom Medication Warnings

You can create your own warnings that will appear when your prescribers work with a particular medication.

To work with eRx Medication Warnings, open the PCC eRx Administration screen, and then click on “Medication Warnings”.

Note: You must be a PCC eRx Administrator to proceed. For help, contact your PCC Client Advocate.

Create a New Warning Message

To add a new message, search for a medication, and when you find it, click on the “Add/Update Warning” button.

Enter your custom warning alert, and if desired, add a comment. Click “Save”.

Your new Medication Warning will be saved. When other users view this screen, they will be able to see the medication, the actual warning text, who edited it and when, along with any comments. There are buttons for deleting or editing this warning, if needed.

View Your Warning Message

When you are prescribing a medication that has a custom warning message, you will see the warning whenever you search for the medication, pick a dosing statement for the medication, or edit the prescription details.

You will also see the warning in the Review and Sign component, when this medication is prescribed.

Now you know how to create a custom Medication Warning for your practice.