Major national policy forces are promoting the adoption and use of health information technology (health IT) to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of health care delivery. One such health IT is electronic prescribing (e-prescribing), which is the direct transmission of prescription information from a provider to a pharmacy. Given research showing that handwritten prescriptions are unsa...

This final rule adopts standards for an electronic prescription drug program under Title I of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA). These standards will be the foundation standards or the first set of final uniform standards for an electronic prescription drug program under the MMA, and represent the first step in our incremental approach to adopting ...

Improving access and quality while reducing expenditures in the United States health system is expected to be a priority for many years. The use of health information technology (HIT), including electronic prescribing (eRx), is an important initiative in efforts aimed at improving safety and outcomes, increasing quality, and decreasing costs. Data from eRx has been used in studies that document...

BACKGROUND Prescription opioid-acetaminophen products account for the majority of cases of acetaminophen-related acute liver failure in the United States. We sought to examine the frequency of opioid-acetaminophen overuse at the Providence VA Medical Center and improve the quality and safety of opioid-acetaminophen prescription practices in a system employing electronic health records and e-pre...

Nearly all general practice physicians (GPs) in the United Kingdom (UK) have electronic health record (EHR) systems in their practices compared with perhaps 15% of primary care physicians in the United States (U.S.). Based on interviews of 13 general GPs and review of current literature, the authors argue that the historical experience of widespread electronic health record uptake in the UK pro...

OBJECTIVE To better understand barriers associated with the adoption and use of electronic prescribing of controlled substances (EPCS), a practice recently established by US Drug Enforcement Administration regulation. MATERIALS AND METHODS Prescribers of controlled substances affiliated with a regional health system were surveyed regarding current electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) activi...

Electronic prescribing and computerized drug management can improve the safety, quality and cost-effectiveness of prescribing. However, if the problems that lead to avoidable adverse events are not addressed by information technology, there is a risk of making considerable investment without the expected return of error reduction and improved patient safety. Improving the safety of prescribing ...

Advances in information and communication technology and in particularly the development of new mobile devices with user-friendly interfaces, broadband communication and wireless networks technology, offer new approaches to encouraging physician adoption of new technology applications. According to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) study “To Error is human: building a safer health system”, over o...

OBJECTIVES To assess whether electronic prescribing is a comprehensive health management tool that may contribute to rational drug use, particularly in polymedicated patients receiving 16 or more medications in the public healthcare system in the Barcelona Health Region (BHR). DESIGN 16 months of retrospective study followed by 12 months of prospective monitoring. SETTING Primary healthcare...