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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electronic prescribing | 5/5 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_prescribing | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:28:22.279053+00:00 | kb-cron |
About 420 million repeat prescriptions are generated in the UK each year - about 200 for each general practitioner each week. They account for about 80% of the cost of medication in primary care. Paper based Repeat Dispensing Services were introduced by the NHS in 1991, and in 1992 it became possible to use the NHS Electronic Prescription Service for this purpose. In 2017 awareness of the scheme among patients was low. In October 2017 Keith McNeil, NHS England's chief clinical information officer demanded that NHS hospitals should be moved rapidly onto electronic prescribing in the light of research showing it would cut serious prescribing errors by more than half. There was no information about the extent to which it is happening in hospitals. After successful pilots in London and the East Midlands it was agreed in April 2018 that electronic prescribing should be introduced in all urgent care settings in England, including NHS 111 and other Out-of-hours services so that dispensed medication can be ready for collection at a pharmacy when patients arrive. £78 million was allocated in December 2018 to encourage progress with implementing electronic prescribing in NHS organisations which were struggling. Electronic prescribing is to start in English hospitals in the summer of 2022, using the IC24 system which was piloted at Midlands Partnership NHS Foundation Trust from 2020.
=== United States === In the United States, the HITECH Act promotes adoption of this technology by defining e-prescribing as one meaningful use of an electronic medical record. Standards for transmitting, recording, and describing prescriptions have been developed by the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs, in particular the SCRIPT standard, which describes data formats. Elsewhere in the world, health care systems have been slower to adopt e-prescribing standards. Adoption of e-prescribing technology has accelerated in the United States, in large part, due to the arrival of Stage 2 of meaningful use. One of the Stage 2 core measures is: "Generate and transmit permissible prescriptions electronically (e-Rx.)" In order to meet this measure, practices must prescribe and transmit at least 50 percent of permissible prescriptions electronically.
==== Surescripts ==== According to data released in May 1991 by Surescripts, a company which operates the nation's largest health information (e-prescribing) network, roughly 317,000 office-based physicians now e-prescribe in the United States. A more recent report released by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT in June 2012 finds that 48 percent of U.S. physicians use e-prescribing systems. National growth in e-prescribing over the period September 2008 through June 2012 increased over 40 percent, with individual states increasing adoption anywhere from 28 percent to 70 percent. In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission sued Surescripts, alleging that the company employed unlawful restraints in order to maintain its monopolies over electronic prescribing.
=== Ukraine === Starting from April 2019, ePrescription is one of the key components of the reimbursement system in Ukraine. The e-prescription module integrates all primary care physicians (over 23,000 doctors) and almost 50% of pharmacies across the country. While the launch of e-prescription was done quickly, the quality was not compromised. The development of the tool was completed according to international standards as well as HL7 FHIR medical data requirements. Ukrainian eHealth system is a two layer system with central core component developed as storage of dictionaries and rules and private IT-companies who offers e-prescription's functionality through interfaces of the doctors and pharmacists. The e-prescription code is open and available. As a next step of expansion of eRx functions in Ukraine, Ministry of Health of Ukraine develop the technical requirement for substitution of old-fashioned paper-based prescriptions with digital eRx for all applicable medicines.
== Research ==
=== Prescription errors === A study in the UK tested the Salford Medication Safety Dashboard (SMASH), a web application to help GPs and pharmacists find people in their electronic health records who might face safety hazards due to prescription errors. The dashboard was successfully used in identifying and helping patients with already registered unsafe prescriptions and later it helped monitoring new cases as they appeared.
== See also == Electronic Prescriptions for Controlled Substances XML Data theft Medical privacy
== References ==
== Further reading == Marceglia, Sara; Mazzola, Luca; Bonacina, Stefano; Tarquini, Paola; Donzelli, Paolo; Pinciroli, Francesco (2013). "A Comprehensive e-Prescribing Model to Allow Representing, Comparing, and Analyzing Available Systems". Methods of Information in Medicine. 52 (3): 199–219. doi:10.3414/ME12-01-0069. PMID 23591784. S2CID 21778456.