Business
Report details plan for e-prescribing
■ A study makes suggestions for doctors looking at electronic prescribing systems.
By Tyler Chin — Posted July 26, 2004
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Recommendations for creating electronic prescribing systems suitable for office-based physicians are outlined in a report issued by an expert panel assembled by Rand, the Santa Monica, Calif.-based think tank.
About 60 recommendations were made, and two-thirds were deemed achievable within the next three years.
The report, "Recommendations for Comparing Electronic Prescribing Systems: Results of an Expert Consensus Process," is designed to offer guidance to physicians seeking to buy e-prescribing systems and to the software companies that design them.
Recommendations include:
- Import patient identification and demographic data from electronic medical records.
- Provide the patient's medication list to prescribers who have care responsibility for the patient.
- Display a list of medications appropriate to the diagnosis.
- Guard against efforts to promote specific drugs by third parties.
- Distinguish alerts based on patient safety and outcomes from those based on formulary adherence.
The report and a supplement are on the Health Affairs Web site (link).