By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO, April 24 (Reuters) - Drug store chains are banding together to bring emergency prescription drug information to people stranded by natural disasters.

A group representing some of the nation's biggest drug retailers -- including CVS, Eckerd, Rite Aid, Walgreens and Wal-Mart -- said on Tuesday they have developed Rx History, a service that can allow licensed prescribers and pharmacists anywhere in the country to securely access a patient's prescription history.

The move comes in response to displaced hurricane victims and is part of a larger movement to make health information more portable.

Emergency medical teams that rushed to help people after hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the Gulf Coast in 2005 said one of the biggest problems was that people had left behind their medications and could not remember what drugs they had been prescribed.

With all but three hospitals closed either temporarily or permanently, and doctors scattered, it was tough to piece together their medical histories.

Many drug store chains already have their own systems to serve customers who are traveling, but this system would share information across rival chains.

The system is now only available in the event of a national emergency, but the plan is that some day it will be available as a part of routine care, said Rob Cronin, a spokesman for SureScripts, operator of the Pharmacy Health Information Exchange, which operates the system and is owned by the pharmacy industry.

The system is designed to reduce the risk of medication errors by making drug records available to licensed caregivers when and where they are treating patients.

All communications within Rx History comply with federal and state privacy and security laws.

"Hurricane Katrina revealed how extremely challenging it can be to treat patients in desperate need of medication, but for whom you have no clinical information source," Dr. Roxane Townsend, deputy secretary for the Louisiana department of health and hospitals, said in a statement.

"For anyone on multiple medications or a medication for a chronic condition, the Rx History service could help a physician or pharmacist save that person's life," she said.

Licensed prescribers can access the system through electronic prescribing or electronic medical records software that has been certified to receive the Rx History, which is operated through the Pharmacy Health Information Exchange, a nationwide network for electronic prescribing.

Pharmacists and doctors without such software can access the system through the web site www.ICERx.org, sponsored by physician software company Informed Decisions Group and the American Medical Association.

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