Assessing the value of electronic prescribing in ambulatory care: A focus group study
Section snippets
E-prescribing system
We studied users of a commercial e-prescribing system (PocketScript, by ZixCorp, Dallas, TX). This application features a linked desktop and handheld e-prescribing system with a variety of drug allergy and interaction alerts supplied by a large US drug interaction database vendor (Cerner Multum, Denver, CO). This system has additional features that include medication pick lists with default dosing, the ability to create favorite prescriptions, formulary tiers tied to patient's insurance type,
Participant characteristics
The three focus group sessions were held in the summer of 2007 over a period of 3 weeks. Two focus group sessions included 8 participants each, and the third included 9. Table 1 displays the characteristics of the 25 participants. Two-thirds of participants were male, and 4% were non-white. The groups included 21 physicians, 3 nurse practitioners, and 1 physician assistant. Five physicians practiced internal medicine, eight pediatrics, six family medicine, and three psychiatry. Physicians had
Discussion
In this focus group study, we set out to understand ambulatory care clinicians’ perceptions of a commercial e-prescribing system and their assessments of drug interaction and allergy alerts. Given the recent approval of the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, providing federal incentives beginning in 2009 for the adoption of e-prescribing, our findings offer timely information to clinicians, policy makers, and private industry. Clinicians were motivated to adopt
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Andrew Seger, PharmD; Justin Spencer, MPA; Daniela Brouillard, BA; Brett Simchowitz, BA; and Junya Zhu, MS.
Contributions: All authors qualify for authorship by substantial contributions to the research and production of the manuscript.
This project was supported by a grant from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts.
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