Dive Brief:
- Nearly 70% of physicians now order prescriptions via electronic medical records, largely due to two federal programs—the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 and meaningful use. Before those laws were passed, e-prescribing occurred with only 7% of prescriptions.
- At the end of 2008, when MIPPA was passed, Massachusetts was the only state that exceeded 20% of prescriptions sent via Surescripts. Now, every state has more than 40% of their physicians e-prescribing. 96% of community pharmacies can accept e-prescriptions. By 2010, the number of new electronic prescriptions sent per month was 6,346.
- The growth in e-prescribing has been dramatic, but experts say there are still areas that keep physicians from using the system in totality. One major challenge is a sig line that can only take 140 characters. Anything beyond that requires a handwritten prescription, and 140 characters is insufficient for many prescriptions.
Dive Insight:
E-prescribing is clearly the low-hanging fruit for providers in the EMR world, with adoption rates much higher than other components of meaningful use (recent statistics showed that only a handful of providers are able to meet the patient engagement portion of attestation).
But vendors still look to ways to increase adoption and utilization in the e-script realm. A few areas where there is space for growth in e-prescribing include prescription renewals, controlled substances, medication management and history and specialty prescribing.
Want to read more? You may enjoy this story about how patient engagement has been a Stage 2 challenges for providers.