According to one recent study, spending on healthcare in the United States is expected to hit an enormous $5.7 trillion by as soon as 2026. As everything from large healthcare systems to private practices attempts to modernize and better serve patients, digital transformation becomes of paramount importance. Indeed, roughly 92% of the country’s top medical systems said that they wanted to expand their digital capabilities over the short-term in an attempt to fundamentally transform their relationship with consumers as per a recent Deloitte survey.
One important trend to that end takes the form of the rise in popularity of electronic prescribing software. But it isn’t just the largest healthcare organizations that stand to benefit – it’s a technology with a lot to offer even smaller medical practices moving forward.
What is an E-Prescribing Solution?
E-prescription technology allows medical providers to send accurate, understandable prescriptions directly to a pharmacy using exclusively electronic methods. There’s no longer a need to manually write a prescription, print it out, and give it to a patient so they can have it filled at a pharmacy. All necessary information is transmitted to the patient electronically, not unlike the way you might buy tickets to a concert or movie in the modern era.
How Does Electronic Prescribing Software Work in Healthcare?
When patients opt to use electronic prescriptions, they first go to their doctor for a consultation, the same as they typically would. Depending on the situation, they may choose telehealth for the added convenience.
The doctor then sends either a text message or an email to the patient’s mobile phone that contains a “token.” Contained within this token is all the necessary prescription information. There will be one token for every prescription that is given.
At that point, all the patient has to do is go to the pharmacy and present the token. It will be scanned, and the prescription will be filled. Some pharmacies even accept the electronic transmission of tokens, meaning that the prescription may very well be filled before the patient even arrives.
Top Benefits of E-Prescribing Software
By far, the number one benefit of e-prescribing software is that it helps prevent the types of errors that most people are used to dealing with.
For decades, there has been a recurring joke that doctors have terrible handwriting. This is because far too often, a patient will present a handwritten prescription to a pharmacist, only to have that pharmacist be unable to read it. If mistakes aren’t made, the prescription can’t be filled at all – creating frustrating delays for all involved.
By allowing for the instant electronic transmission of error-free prescription information, e-prescribing software helps prevent that from happening.
Many of these platforms also leverage instant notifications to help spot issues that a busy doctor or pharmacist could conceivably miss. The e-prescription platform will alert everyone instantly if something is prescribed that a patient has reported being allergic to, for example, or if it interacts negatively with another drug that they’re taking. The same is true of duplicate therapies or even clinical alerts that someone may have missed. Again, it’s all about removing human error from the situation, creating a safer and more convenient experience for the patient.
E-prescribing software is also a way for medical professionals to shed invaluable light on a notoriously murky process. Once a prescription is written, there really was no way for a doctor to track whether it had actually been filled. A patient might forget or decide not to take the medication at all. With an e-prescription solution, a doctor can at the very least see that the prescription was filled and if it wasn’t, they know to follow up and inquire why.
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Choosing the Right E-Prescribing Software For Your Medical Practice
One of the most important things to look for when choosing an e-prescribing system for your medical practice comes down to ease-of-use. Remember that patients will only use the system if it is more convenient than traditional prescriptions. Likewise, it shouldn’t require extensive training or a major learning curve on behalf of your employees. It should be simple and straightforward, despite having all the advanced features you need.
Any solution you invest in now also needs to be scalable. One of the advantages of digital transformation is that it can help you use technology to grow your practice. Therefore, your e-prescribing software needs to not only support the practice you’re running today but the one you hope to be running in five or even ten years as it continues to grow and evolve. If it isn’t scalable, you’ll only find yourself in need of another solution when that time comes.
E-prescription software should also be inherently secure since it is dealing with protected health information, which also means that it needs to be fully HIPAA-compliant as well.
Key Takeaways
- E-prescription solution allows a medical professional to send a patient their prescription information via a digital token.
- That token can then be presented at the pharmacy, filling the prescription and removing issues like human error from a historically problematic process.
- E-prescription Platform can also offer instant notifications in the event of any recalls or drug notifications.
- Overall, it acts as a primary example of how even smaller medical practices can leverage modern technology to dramatically improve the patient experience.
The Future of Healthcare Is Here
The team at Bizmatics understands just how important digital transformation is for the future of not only healthcare professionals but the patients they have dedicated themselves to serving. Any opportunity to work better, faster, smarter, and more effectively is one worth capitalizing on and that’s what our solutions like PrognoCIS EHR are designed to assist with.
More than just another EHR solution, PrognoCIS EHR is a cloud-based, HIPAA-compliant platform that is designed to increase the quality of the patient experience and help save a practice money at the same time. Those funds can then be funneled back into other areas of the practice where they can have the biggest positive impact, which in and of itself is the most important benefit of all.
To find out more information about the major benefits of e-prescribing technology for medical practices, or to speak to someone about your own needs in a bit more detail, please feel free to contact Bizmatics, Inc. today.
