Medical Prescription - Use of Technology

Use of Technology

As a prescription is nothing more than information among a prescriber, pharmacist and patient, information technology can be applied to it. Existing information technology is adequate to print out prescriptions. Medical information systems in some hospitals do away with prescriptions within the hospital. There are proposals to securely transmit the prescription from the prescriber to the pharmacist using smartcard or the internet. In the United Kingdom a project called the Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions (ETP) within the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) is currently piloting such a scheme between prescribers and pharmacies.

Within computerized pharmacies, the information on paper prescriptions is recorded into a database. Afterwards, the paper prescription is archived for storage and legal reasons.

A pharmacy chain is often linked together through corporate headquarters with computer networking. Walgreens, for example, uses satellite technology to share patient information. A person who has a prescription filled at one Walgreens can get a refill of that prescription at any other store in the chain, as well as have their information available for new prescriptions at any Walgreens.

Some online pharmacies also offer services to customers over the internet. Walgreens' web site, for example, allows customers to order refills for medicine over the internet, and allows them to specify the store that they will pick up the medicine from. Their web site also allows consumers to look up their prescription history, and to print it out.

Many pharmacies now offer services to ship prescription refills right to the patient's home. CVS, for example, will ship refills free of charge. They also offer mail service where you can mail in a new, original prescription and a signed document, and they will ship the filled prescription back to you.

Pharmacy information systems are a potential source of valuable information for pharmaceutical companies as it contains information about the prescriber's prescribing habits. Prescription data mining of such data is a developing, specialized field.

Many prescribers lack the digitized information systems that reduce prescribing errors. To reduce these errors, some investigators have developed modified prescription forms that prompt the prescriber to provide all the desired elements of a good prescription. The modified forms also contain pre-defined choices such as common quantities, units and frequencies that the prescriber may circle rather than write out. Such forms are thought to reduce errors, especially omission and handwriting errors and are actively under evaluation. (See: Kennedy AG, Littenberg B. A Modified Outpatient Prescription Form to Reduce Prescription Errors. Joint Commission Journal of Quality and Safety 2004; 30:480-487.)