Article Figures & Data
Tables
Additional Files
Supplemental Appendix, Table, & Figure
Supplemental Appendix. Advance Questionnaire for Site Visits; Supplemental Table 1. Expert Advisory Committee; Supplemental Figure 1. Prescription-sized handout explaining electronic prescribing to patients and pharmacists.
Files in this Data Supplement:
- Supplemental data: Appendix - PDF file, 1 page, 111 KB
- Supplemental data: Table - PDF file, 1 page, 131 KB
- Supplemental data: Figure - PDF file, 1 page, 233 KB
The Article in Brief
Meaningful Use of Electronic Prescribing in 5 Exemplar Primary Care Practices
Jesse C. Crosson , and colleagues
Background In the United States, many physicians have adopted e-prescribing but do not regularly use it to write prescriptions. In addition, new approaches to adopting e-prescribing are needed to meet federal policy goals. This study identifies key lessons from 5 primary care practices that effectively e-prescribe.
What This Study Found Successful use of e-prescribing requires substantial investments of planning time and ongoing transformation of work processes. Practices that successfully incorporate e-prescribing have substantial resources to support e-prescribing use, including local physician champions, ongoing training for practice members, and continuous on-site technical support. Even these practices, however, face considerable challenges in e-prescribing, including problems coordinating new work processes with pharmacies and ineffective health information exchange that requires workarounds to ensure the completeness of patient records.
Implications
- Although e-prescribing is among the technologies expected to transform health care in the near future, successful and widespread implementation will require a longer-term commitment to supporting practice transformation, resources to aid in making these changes, and improvements to the infrastructure for health information exchange.