E-Prescribing and Electronic Prescribing
E-Prescribing (electronic prescribing) is the process of a prescriber electronically sending a prescription from the prescribers office.
Providers benefit from ePrescribing by:
- Obtaining real-time information about potential drug-drug and drug-allergy interactions. This minimizes calls from pharmacies and reduces potential adverse drug events.
- Reducing handwriting interpretation errors, estimated to cause 9% of all medication errors.
- Seeing plan formulary requirements (prior authorization, quantity restrictions, non-covered drug, and drug tier) at the point of care, giving the patient faster access to cost-effective care.
- Seeing a patient’s dispensed drug history, thereby enabling the prescriber to make clinically appropriate decisions at the point of care.
- Knowing when an FDA Safety Alert has been issued, and allowing them to generate a report of all patients on the drug without needing to pull patient charts.
- Having access to clinical decision support tools.
- Increasing the convenience and efficiency of the prescription-writing process.
Office staff benefit from ePrescribing by:
- Reducing calls from pharmacies regarding non-covered medications and handwriting questions.
- Speeding the prescription renewal process by reducing the need to pull patient charts.
- Case studies suggest a savings of 1-2 hours/day for office staff.
- Eliminating calls from patients who are requesting an alternative covered medication or need the prescriber to request prior authorization.
Patients benefit by:
- Having lower out-of-pocket costs when prescribers respond to ePrescribing formulary messages.
- Saving time at the pharmacy by having prescriptions sent prior to patient arrival, and reducing the potential for two trips because prescribers more frequently adhere to health plan requirements.
- Reducing potential for adverse drug events caused by drug-drug or drug-allergy interactions, mistaken handwriting, or incorrect dosage.
- Increasing compliance with prescribed treatment because care is cost-effective and convenient.
Pharmacies benefit by:
- Reducing phone calls to physicians regarding handwriting interpretation, non-covered drugs, and prior authorization requirements.
- Reducing data entry when prescriptions are received electronically.
- Reducing potential errors caused by handwriting misinterpretation and keystroke errors
Because e-prescribing provides drug and formulary information at the point of care, it has been credit with decreasing pharmacy costs by increasing the use of
generic drugs.
Return from E-prescribing to HOME electronic medical records
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