The proposed marshalling of e-forces between Cal eConnect and the CaleRx Consortium has moved forward, and after yesterday’s meeting of Cal eConnect’s advisory group, it looks even more likely that some kind of merger will take place.

“E-prescribing is one of the high priorities for us,” Mark Elson of Cal eConnect said. “We’ve been in discussion with the California E-Prescribing Consortium about consolidating our activities in e-prescribing, and that discussion has been positive. We are now in a position to basically adopt the E-Prescribing Consortium into Cal eConnect.”

Elson said it will soon be presented to the eConnect board, though probably not in time for its next board meeting on Friday. CaleRx members meet on Tuesday.

“This is a new prong in our overall plan, so it’s very exciting,” Cal eConnect executive director Carladenise Armbrister Edwards said. One of the issues is whether or not to conduct a gap analysis, to get a better sense of where and why providers have not yet adopted e-prescribing.

Edwards said the work already done by CaleRx may lead to more concrete pursuits.

“We’re looking to see what is it that we can actually do,” Edwards said. “We don’t want to create more reports, but taking what we know to an action plan.”

Lucia Savage, associate general counsel for United Healthcare and eConnect advisory panelist, agrees.

“In my experience it makes more sense to concentrate on getting tools into the doctors’ hands, rather than running studies about why they don’t have them,” Savage said.