E-HEALTH NEWS

07/26/2010     

Docs Slow to Adopt Advanced e-Prescribing

Although electronic prescribing tools are widely available, they are not very widely used. According to the 2009 National Progress Report on E-Prescribing released in March by the electronic prescription exchange service Surescripts, about 68 million prescriptions—or 6.6% of the U.S. total—were transmitted electronically in 2008. This tripled to 191 million, or about 18%, in 2009, the Surescripts report noted.

The Center for Studying Health System Change report acknowledged barriers to the use of these applications. It mentioned other studies' findings that doctors suffer "alert fatigue" from the drug-interaction feature and often stop using it. The report also noted that many physicians are reluctant to rely on health-plan-supplied formulary information because they perceive this data to be incomplete or inaccurate and that patients' pharmacies sometimes lack the capacity to receive electronic prescriptions.

Source: Andis Robeznieks, Modern Healthcare [7/22/10]