Posted By Monique Dever On October 30, 2016
Without a certified EHR, clinics are missing out on benefits of eRX
Electronic prescriptions (eRX) are on the rise. Today more than 77% of all prescriptions are digital. According to HealthcareIT News, Surescripts network connected more than one million healthcare professionals and provided access to information on more than 240 million patients. The network now conducts more transactions daily than Amazon or Uber, according to Surescripts’ CEO, Tom Skelton.
The move toward Electronic Health Records and the more recent CMS incentives for Interoperability have been the main reasons for the staggering increases in electronic prescriptions. If your EHR has a built-in eRX feature, than likely you are already enjoying the benefits. If you are still using a paper system or an EHR that is not certified and doesn’t offer this feature, are you and your patients missing out? Undoubtedly so.
The benefits of eRX are immense! Electronic Prescription software increases patient safety with built-in alerts for drug–to-drug and drug-to-allergy interactions and connects to a nationwide prescription database where every patient’s dispensed medications are stored. Prescriptions, as well as medication histories, processed electronically are saving health facilities including Public Health Departments, FQHCs and Hospitals millions of dollars and are helping to prevent thousands of patient readmissions and adverse drug events.
Built-in electronic prescription software enables providers to either print prescriptions on paper or send them electronically to any pharmacy in the nation. If your health agency has an in-house pharmacy the eRX benefits can be even more substantial! The software can interface with in-house pharmacy systems improving clinical workflow and decreasing costs. And since prescriptions are sent directly from the EHR to the pharmacy, your staff can reduce the required pharmacist-to-physician phone calls and the need to manually enter prescription data.