Electronic Prescribing Disadvantages

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In today's world, where technology is constantly and rapidly growing, the use of electronic prescribing systems is increasing. An electronic prescribing system, also known as e-prescribing, allows the health care provider to authorize an electronic transmission of one or more prescriptions to a pharmacy. There are, however, challenges presented with e-prescribing such as incorrect medication doses and the adoption of the system in a few health care fields. This two-way transmission of electronic prescribing can increase the quality of patient care, advance patient safety and decrease medication errors. Introduction The Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) Of 2003 provisions of Part D required a plan that supports an "electronic prescription program," where providers and pharmacies voluntarily choose to do e-prescribing. "This program is required to provide for the electronic transmittal of the following specific types of information among …show more content…

Electronic prescribing systems that contain information on the patient's history including disease and drug factors allow the decision support for dosing. Yet, "prescribers are more likely to accept alerts if they are relevant to the specific prescribing situation and they are not distracted by indiscriminate alerts. However, many systems do not contain all of the data required. Excessive overriding of decision support messages leads to alert fatigue and erodes confidence in the system and makes it more likely that subsequent relevant alerts will be ignored" (Coleman, Nwulu & Ferner, 2012). Some of the other challenges that are experienced are the adoption of electronic prescribing systems in "primary care settings, including unrealistic expectations among users, inadequate technical support, and poor functioning of the technical infrastructure for e-prescribing" (Crosson et al.,

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