Transmitting and processing electronic prescriptions: experiences of physician practices and pharmacies
OPEN ACCESS- Correspondence to Joy M Grossman, Center for Studying Health System Change, 1100 1st Street, NE, 12th Floor, Washington, DC 20002-4221, USA; jgrossman{at}hschange.org
- Received 29 July 2011
- Accepted 15 October 2011
- Published Online First 18 November 2011
Abstract
Objective A core feature of e-prescribing is the electronic exchange of prescription data between physician practices and pharmacies, which can potentially improve the efficiency of the prescribing process and reduce medication errors. Barriers to implementing this feature exist, but they are not well understood. This study's objectives were to explore recent physician practice and pharmacy experiences with electronic transmission of new prescriptions and renewals, and identify facilitators of and barriers to effective electronic transmission and pharmacy e-prescription processing.
Design Qualitative analysis of 114 telephone interviews conducted with representatives from 97 organizations between February and September 2010, including 24 physician practices, 48 community pharmacies, and three mail-order pharmacies actively transmitting or receiving e-prescriptions via Surescripts.
Results Practices and pharmacies generally were satisfied with electronic transmission of new prescriptions but reported that the electronic renewal process was used inconsistently, resulting in inefficient workarounds for both parties. Practice communications with mail-order pharmacies were less likely to be electronic than with community pharmacies because of underlying transmission network and computer system limitations. While e-prescribing reduced manual prescription entry, pharmacy staff frequently had to complete or edit certain fields, particularly drug name and patient instructions.
Conclusions Electronic transmission of new prescriptions has matured. Changes in technical standards and system design and more targeted physician and pharmacy training may be needed to address barriers to e-renewals, mail-order pharmacy connectivity, and pharmacy processing of e-prescriptions.
- Electronic prescribing
- e-prescribing
- CPOE
- clinical pharmacy information systems
- community pharmacies
- electronic health records
- EMR
- EHR
Footnotes
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Funding This research was funded under contract number HHSA 290-05-0007 (03) from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), US Department of Health and Human Services. The opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of AHRQ or the US Department of Health and Human Services.
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Competing interests None.
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Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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