Dive Brief:
- New statistics released by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT show that the rate of doctors using e-prescribing technology has shot up dramatically.
- As of this past April, the rate of physicians doing e-prescribing via EMRs has hit 70% of all U.S. doctors, boosted by both the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act in December 2008 and the start of the Meaningful Use programs in 2011. Prior to the institution of these programs, only 7% of U.S. physicians used e-prescribing technology.
- The upward surge in e-prescribing was correlated with dramatic growth in prescriptions sent electronically, up from 4% in 2008 to 57% in 2013.
Dive Insight:
Though incentives alone aren't always enough to prompt technology adoption—note physicians' resistance to stepping up to Stage 2 of Meaningful Use—it seems that they've been very effective in this case. The success of e-prescribing incentive efforts is borne out by research published in the journal HealthAffairs, who found there's strong evidence that the incentives did the job.
Nonetheless, there's clearly a significant amount of work to be done in getting docs to use e-prescribing. If only 57% of scripts are being dispensed electronically, clearly some doctors remain attached to their prescribing pad.Given the documented safety improvements e-prescribing can offer, this issue should remain front-of-mind for policy-makers.