Prescription fraudulence and proper medication adherence are amongst the significant challenges in the healthcare industry. The issue faced by doctors and medical professionals can be best addressed with a proper system that ensures the control of drug prescription and remote patient treatment. Advanced technologies such as E-Prescribing Software and Internet Medical of Things (IoMT) have brought groundbreaking changes in the field, thereby generating huge benefits.
Advantages of Using E-prescribing Tools
Electronic prescribing tools offer multiple advantages to patients, doctors, medical staff, and pharmacies. The blog highlights the core benefits below that play a crucial role in improving the quality of healthcare services.
Prescription Fraudulence Reduction
E-prescribing solutions can significantly reduce and even eliminate prescription fraudulence. The traditional offline doctor-patient treatment activity where doctors give handwritten prescriptions to the patient contains many flaws. For example, it allows fraudulent patients to do anything they want with this piece of paper. Plus, there is a chance of prescriptions getting lost.
But digital solutions have entirely revamped the condition and helped eliminate this link so doctors can send their prescriptions directly to the pharmacy where a patient is supposed to purchase them.
Drug Refill Process Optimization
The electronic prescribing tool can be integrated with advanced hospital management systems and electronic health record platforms. This enables the patients to input their information on how treatment impacts their health condition, so the doctor can either make an appointment or change refill terms. The doctor can specify the refill conditions for the prescribed drug, so a patient doesn't need to book another appointment if the only reason for it is to get a refill prescription.
Drug Purchase Confirmation and Notifications
To make e-prescribing applications function effectively, they should also be aligned with the pharmacy platform so that all required information reaches directly to the required pharmacy. Only particular specialists can access it to deliver the necessary drug to the patient. Pharmacists add vital data such as the time and date of the prescribed drug purchase. They also get the leverage of leaving any specific comment in the system to notify the doctor regarding their health.
Eliminating the Need for Handwritten Prescriptions
The best Electronic Prescribing Software eliminates the need for providing handwritten prescriptions to patients. It is almost impossible to interpret electronic prescriptions falsely. Pharmacy specialists may have the expertise in reading handwritten prescriptions, yet there is always a possibility of misreading a handwritten prescription. Additionally, frauds cannot forge or duplicate a handwritten prescription since they don't have access to its content.
Increased Patient Safety
The e-prescribing system can detect contradictions in prescriptions based on its salient features. For instance, if a doctor prescribes a particular drug or medicine to a patient, the tool identifies whether they can prove allergic to the patient or cause any other symptom in their body. The software sends an instant alert message to the doctor in such a situation, preventing them from prescribing it. The doctor can prescribe some other medicine.
The tool also ensures that the prescription that reaches the pharmacy must contain a validation or confirmation code instead of the patient's name and surname and doctor's contact information. It nullifies the chances of using the prescription for illegal purposes.
E-prescribing tools are commonly a part of more prominent platforms, implying that only attending physicians can access their patient history. Other medical staff cannot view or use this information. Data encryption and two-factor authentication have already become standard practices for healthcare and patient safety compliance.
You May Come Across These Subtle Issues
- The digitization of the drug prescription process may have a few cons as well. But these drawbacks are not very threatening, which can impair the robust healthcare infrastructure system. Understanding these cons will help you choose an e-prescribing tool that is capable of handling them.
- Doctors may prefer to write a manual prescription compared to an electronic prescription, especially when attending to the patients admitted in emergency rooms. Not that e-prescribing software solutions cannot create prescriptions quickly, as many premium tools have advanced features to process data speedily. Also, user-friendly, intuitive, and high-quality software can readily solve the issue.
- There may be typos, inability to log in, inaccurate information, and missing input or data. But you can always resolve these problems through proper staff training on how to use the software efficiently and get such tool features that can automatically detect the mistakes. An E-Prescribing system that offers an easy-to-use dashboard can solve this issue.
- Advanced electronic prescribing software automatically updates and catches security perils at an early stage to protect system malfunctioning. For example, quality assurance specialists check software on all possible bugs and flaws. Additionally, they play a hacker's role while testing healthcare software on vulnerabilities of all known types. This can be easily addressed upon selecting a tool that comes with all the security measures.
- To prevent the electronic prescribing systems from getting hacked and protect data from unauthorized users, developers pay attention to meeting the local and global safety regulations and compliance. They implement new security tactics apart from the two-factor authorization and automated tracking of attempts to sign in the system from the new device.
Final Words
The medical and healthcare industry has witnessed an ever-emerging evolution, all thanks to digital transformation technologies. E-Prescribing Software has given positive impetus to doctors, patients, healthcare workers, and pharmacists, etc., enabling them to record and monitor all vital health parameters accurately, save costs, and most essentially optimize the patient treatment process.
Also, you have the leverage of selecting the best free and open source e-prescribing software, which provides you two manifold benefits. You can check the GoodFirms list of best e-prescribing tools to browse through popular options such as RXNT, Practice Fusion, MDToolbox, ScriptSure, AdvancedMD Rhythm, and many more. You can customize the features, new add-ons, all free of cost. Also, read the E-Prescribing Software buyer's guide if you are interested in knowing more about this handy tool.
