What is E-Prescribing?
E-Prescribing is a physician’s use of real-time, patient-specific clinical and economic information, for consenting patients, to: • Prescribe the most medically appropriate and cost effective prescription at the point of care, and • Transmit the prescription electronically to the patient’s pharmacy of choice. Pharmacies can also request refills by sending an electronic refill request to the physician office for approval.
Electronic prescribing (ePrescribing) uses computers to allow a health care provider to enter, modify, review, and communicate your prescription information. ePrescribing provides secure, 2-way electronic data interchange between providers and pharmacies. SureScripts, founded by the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and the National Community Pharmacists Association, has started electronic prescribing programs in states across the United States (http://www.surescripts.com). In addition to sending prescriptions, ePrescribing can help the provider make decisions. Information about medication history, allergy information, drug interaction alerts, and insurance benefits eligibility information may be available to the provider. ePrescribing is efficient and accurate because the system is entirely electronic. Prescription errors may result from miscommunication due to unreadable handwriting, unclear abbreviations, and dose designations, unclear telephone or verbal orders, or confusin
