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Introduction to E-Prescribing

E-prescribing is a safe and effective technology that has stood the test of time. Some of the current e-prescribing solutions have been around for more than 10 years, and have explored various ways to optimally implement the features your practice needs. E-prescribing gives your practice a way to electronically create and send prescriptions to a pharmacy. Several of the more advanced systems available provide real-time patient eligibility checks, provide real-time patient-specific formularies, patient medication history, drug and allergy interactions, and electronic connectivity to mail and retail pharmacies. These advanced systems support PC and Mac users as well as mobile users of iPhone, Blackberry, and iPaq.

The challenge for e-health technology vendors is managing their electronic prescription network so be sure you’re using a proven product or you could be asking for trouble. You’ll want to be sure every prescription makes it to the pharmacy accurately and timely so you’re not receiving complaints from your patients or the pharmacist. Your vendor will need to meet state and federal laws for generating and sending e-prescriptions. A few of the more advanced vendors handle a million or more prescriptions per month so you can be sure that if you select one of them they will know the process well.

Although most healthcare technology experts agree that electronic medical records are the Holy Grail, those same experts agree that the expense and change in work habits are significant hurdles that can make or break an organization. On the other hand, a good stand-alone eprescribing system is a terrific starter application will not cost too much, will provide almost immediate return on investment, will not require a great deal of training for the physician or staff, and will create efficiencies in the workplace within 30-days of installation. As with any software purchase, it is important to be sure you’re purchasing best-in-breed software.

One organization, Surescripts, is the national pharmacy network that electronically connects e-prescribing systems to retail and mail order pharmacies. Surescripts has developed a system for rating e-prescribing systems to help you in the selection process. There are about 7 certification components offered by Surescripts which include eligibility and formulary, reporting, medication history, retail new rx, retail rx renewal, mail order new rx, and mail order rx renewal. All components listed above are important to an effective solution and any solution being considered should be certified in all areas. For example, would you want a solution that required you to print prescriptions for your mail order clients because the application is not certified to send electronic prescriptions to mail order? By Surescripts standards, an e-prescribing solution's components can rank from "Uncertified" (providing a solution they deem unsatisfactory) to "Platinum Solution Provider" (providing an outstanding, innovative solution). At this time, the only platinum-certified stand-alone e-prescribing solution available in the U.S. is RxNT . There are a handful of Gold certified products, we have created a comprehensive list under the “Products” tab to guide you through the selection process.

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