What do you get when you mix technology and prescriptions? The answer is electronic prescribing applications. These software applications makes the administering of prescription medication, patient safety, and reducing costs its number one priority.
How does it work?
Using an e-prescribing software application, a doctor logs into the system using a secure password. He then data enters a patient’s prescription information including dosage, which is transmitted to an authorized participating pharmacy eliminating the need for a paper prescription. The only requirements are a computer, e-prescribing application, secure internet connection, and high speed capabilities.
Benefits of the e-prescribing application for doctors
An electronic prescription application such as Allscripts ePrescribe allows the doctor to perform the following processes:
- Confirm patients records for prior adverse reactions to medication
- Check for duplication in therapy
- Verify medication dosage
- Check for drug to drug interaction
- Look for the availability of generic equivalents
- Run compliance checks
Advantages
The advantages of electronic prescription applications for pharmacy and patient include:
- The reduction of pharmacy calls due to illegible handwriting decreases the risk of medicine errors and liability
- Simplifies the renewal process making the process seamless and speedier
- Provides information to insurance providers and pharmacies about formulary-based drug coverage
- Increases patient compliance by ensuring prescriptions orders are being filled
- Offers convenience to patients by reducing the number of trips to the pharmacy and the amount of time waiting for prescriptions to be filled
- The ability to run reports to determine who was prescribed a medication during a recall or track the frequency of certain medications prescribed by providers
Disadvantages
With all applications, there are a few minor disadvantages:
- Human error when a doctor enters the wrong information, selects the wrong patient , or chooses the wrong options from the menu
- Divulging private protected health information inadvertently over unsecure internet lines
- Inability to file prescriptions electronically due to power or computer system failures
Putting aside the disadvantages, electronic prescription applications can save time, money, and even lives.