Digital Prescription in Pharmacy: A High Dose of Convenience
July 26, 2022Digital prescription, often called E-Prescription, is doing wonders in modernizing our healthcare space. It’s a critical component of the 21st century digital health revolution alongside HMS software. Gone are those days when physicists reach out to their pad & pen. Now their hands go onto the keyboard while suggesting medicine.
Technology brings convenience. Like many other tech products, E-prescriptions take this convenience to a whole new level. And not only doctors but patients too can benefit from electronic prescribing.
According to a research article published in JMR, 98% of pharmacies and 81% of physicians use e-prescriptions for controlled substances in New York state. This data reflects on the quick adoption of digital prescriptions by pharmacies and prescribers. Today, we’ll be taking a look at how digital prescription is revolutionizing the modern healthcare system. Let’s start with the definition.
What is Digital Prescription?
Digital Prescription is known as the computer-based generation and transmission of medical prescriptions. Whenever an electronic device is used between two involved parties to recommend medication, it can be described as a digital prescription. While software plays a key role, handheld devices like tablets & smartphones work as the input medium.
Usually, doctors, pharmacists, and clinics use this medium of communication with patients. E-prescribing has served its purpose quite well. Among the benefits of digital prescription adoption is the secure transmission of the prescription data to pharmacists, who can start on the order right away. Let’s expand on this.
Benefits of E-Prescription over Traditional Prescription
Thanks to practice management software, e-prescribing has been a streamlined process and common practice in many parts of the world. The reasons behind the fast adoption of digitized prescriptions are quite significant.
Reduces Opioid Frauds
According to the US Department of Justice, opioid fraud resulted in more than $6 billion in losses. Most of these frauds involved some kind of paper prescriptions.
EPCS or Electronic Prescriptions for Controlled Substances, has put a hold on opioid frauds. Now fraudsters are finding it difficult to get opioids with handwritten prescriptions as more and more pharmacies are allowing opioid purchases with EPCS only.
Reduces Medication Errors
There are multiple jokes about doctors and their handwriting. Bad handwriting often leads to medication errors which result in lakhs of deaths per year in the world. The introduction of E-prescription has resolved this issue to a great extent.
With digital prescription in digital pharmacy management, there’s hardly any scope for suggesting the wrong medicine. As all the medication shows in digital writing, it makes the job of pharmacists safe and easy. Now, you don’t have to depend on a physician’s writing skills to get the right medicine for yourself.
Conveniently Stores Medical Data
Digital prescription software is an allrounder in storing data. If you’re a physician with hundreds of patients under your watch, you should maintain a log of the medication each patient is going through.
E-prescription software does this job with ease. You don’t need to ask your patients to bring wrinkled paper prescriptions. Instead, you can just type the name and check the list of medicines for each patient.
Suggests Insurance-covered Medication
People take mediclaims to cover up all health-related costs. Thus, if a physician suggests a specific medication that is not covered by the patients’ insurance, they become reluctant to buy it in the first place.
With leading E-prescription software, physicians can suggest medicine specific to insurance cover. Cloud based prescription software is equipped with a database that shows the insurance cover status of any medication. Thus, suggesting medication according to an insurance plan becomes effortless.
Conclusion
Digital prescription has been the standard practice in first-world nations. India is also going through a revamp in prescribing methods. There are a few E-prescription software firms like SoftClinic who are bringing this life-saver tech into India, where the digital health market is still untapped.
With SoftClinic’s state-of-the-art digital prescription software, clinics can easily digitize the workflow. It not only benefits the clinics but also helps patients avoid atrocities while offering them the ultimate convenience.