Here Come e-Pills
Barron's Online: " e-prescribing's time has at long last come, that is welcome news for little firms like Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, a Chicago-based company that has been diligently pitching electronic prescribing systems since 1999. Health insurers and prescription benefit managers (PBMs) -- like CareMark Rx, Express Scripts and Medco Health Solutions -- will also win big, because e-prescribing systems nudge doctors into prescribing less-expensive branded drugs and generics.
Paper prescriptions could use a computer fix. Two million patients fall ill every year because of scribbled prescriptions or misunderstood phone calls that lead them to get the wrong medicine. Over 10% of the 3.4 billion prescriptions dispensed annually require doctor-authorized refills -- chewing up valuable time for pharmacists, nurses and doctors, if patients don't neglect their refills altogether.
'Many people can't afford to refill the medication that their doctor prescribes,' says Dr. Frisse, "and if you talk to the doctors, they say 'I never realized what this medication costs.'" Since the 1990s, therefore, blue-ribbon committees and software industry marketers have urged doctors to computerize their patient records, and to send prescriptions by e-mail. Just last month, a study by a group of medical and industry experts called the eHealth Initiative concluded that e-prescribing could save the nation $27 billion a year.
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Comments: The initiative and technology have existed since the 1990s. It took a government intervention in the form of a Medicare revamp to turn the effort in the right direction - despite the benefits that everyone all know about e-prescribing (i.e. enforcement of generics and additional safety/quality). This is almost a decade later.
Why do we have to move so slow ?
Paper prescriptions could use a computer fix. Two million patients fall ill every year because of scribbled prescriptions or misunderstood phone calls that lead them to get the wrong medicine. Over 10% of the 3.4 billion prescriptions dispensed annually require doctor-authorized refills -- chewing up valuable time for pharmacists, nurses and doctors, if patients don't neglect their refills altogether.
'Many people can't afford to refill the medication that their doctor prescribes,' says Dr. Frisse, "and if you talk to the doctors, they say 'I never realized what this medication costs.'" Since the 1990s, therefore, blue-ribbon committees and software industry marketers have urged doctors to computerize their patient records, and to send prescriptions by e-mail. Just last month, a study by a group of medical and industry experts called the eHealth Initiative concluded that e-prescribing could save the nation $27 billion a year.
--
Comments: The initiative and technology have existed since the 1990s. It took a government intervention in the form of a Medicare revamp to turn the effort in the right direction - despite the benefits that everyone all know about e-prescribing (i.e. enforcement of generics and additional safety/quality). This is almost a decade later.
Why do we have to move so slow ?
posted by JPG at
09:10
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