ONC offers eRx guide
A new electronic guide from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT aims to help prescribers maximize the benefits of electronic prescribing.
The guide, "A Prescription for e-Prescribers: Getting the Most Out of Electronic Prescribing," is intended to help prescribers learn more about what to expect from e-prescribing and how to improve their use of the functionality throughout each of the following eight stages of the e-prescribing process:
- Identify the patient
- Review current data
- Select drug from a menu in the EHR
- Enter parameters and information for the pharmacy
- Review alerts and advisories
- Select pharmacy
- Authorize and sign
- Review expectations with patient, monitor e-prescribing logs and manage electronic renewal requests
The guide offers considerations for e-prescribers such as whether the EHR allows the prescriber to store a patient's preferred pharmacy and potential changes to make to better manage medication use.
"Some of these changes can result in decreased pharmacy call backs to the practice, increased patient satisfaction and improved e-prescribing productivity," according to the guide. "Recommendations to create unambiguous prescriptions with standardized information enable effective clinical decision support and enhanced patient safety."
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.