In general, E-prescribing is an electronic way to send an accurate, error-free and understandable prescription directly to a pharmacy from the point-of-care. It’s been described as the solution to improve patient safety and reducing sky-rocketing medication costs.
Adoption History
Based on HIMSS source, 7,000 Americans die and 1.5 million Americans are injured yearly and the cost of errors is $2 billion per year. Physicians write more than 4.5 billion prescriptions each year. Only 20% of prescriptions are prescribed electronically; 80% are handwritten.
On November 7, 2005, Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS) published foundation standard of e-prescribing under Part D of the MMA.
On January, 1, 2006, the standards became effective.
On April, 2, 2008, the final e-prescribing rule was released by the Federal Register.
Beginning January 1, 2009, CMS will offer physician payment incentives of 2 percent for using e-prescribing in 2009 and 2010.
After May 2009, MMA will result in greater support for e-prescribing. But this does not mean that e-prescribing is required and will become the most common approach. And Most information about e-prescribing can be obtained from
Healthcare Information and Management System Society (HIMSS) http://www.himss.org/ASP/index.asp
National ePrescribing Patient Safety Initiative (NEPSI)
http://www.nationalerx.com/
E-Prescribing in China
HL7 China was formed in 2006, and e-prescribing has been adopted widely in major cities, e.g., Shanghai, Beijing. 90% of the grade-three hospitals has adopted e-prescribing systems based on the news. http://www.hl7china.com.cn/.
HL7 China was formed in 2006, and e-prescribing has been adopted widely in major cities, e.g., Shanghai, Beijing. 90% of the grade-three hospitals has adopted e-prescribing systems based on the news. http://www.hl7china.com.cn/.
In this merging market, lots of software vendors are there already. Most of them just started a couple of years ago. Recently I spent lots of time thinking about what still can be done and debating with a physician from a different way of thinking. I would not post a lot of details technically, but basically I think that there are lots of new development opportunities we can do with e-prescribing. There is no winner yet. The best product with the right business model, right execution, right persons, high quality will win in the end.
