T-System E-Prescribing: It's a "Sure" Thing

As more and more providers demonstrate Meaningful Use of EHRs, electronic prescribing is emerging as the new standard of practice for delivering high-quality patient care. We all know that e-prescribing offers the promise of prescription legibility, but its other benefits may not be quite as obvious. The new T-System E-Prescribing solution operates over the Surescripts Electronic Prescribing Network, the largest e-prescribing network in healthcare that supports 90 percent of U.S. retail and independent pharmacies. It helps ensure that prescriptions get filled, reduces errors and saves money for patients and providers.

Boosting Medication Pick-Up Rates
Increases in prescription utilization far outpace the country's population growth. From 1997 to 2007, the number of filled prescriptions multiplied 72 percent (from 2.2 billion to 3.8 billion), compared to a U.S. population growth of 11 percent¹. That figure does not even take into account all of the prescriptions that were written but never filled.

Thirty percent of paper prescriptions do not get filled. While 70 percent of patients will leave the hospital or doctor's office and obtain their medication, many others will simply tuck the paper away and forget about it². Some will intentionally opt to skip the pharmacy visit as they dread the amount of time it can take to obtain their medication.

Not only does e-prescribing offer convenience to patients – whose prescriptions can be sent to their preferred pharmacy before they even leave the medical facility – it offers a higher quality of care. Physicians prescribe medications for a reason; if patients do not take those medications, they are not following the care plan set forth for them. E-prescribing helps ensure that patients get the medications they need. New research shows that e-prescribing increases the number of filled prescriptions by 7 percent. While that doesn't seem like a notable increase, it represents 266 million prescriptions.

Reducing Errors
An automated prescription process reduces errors. Pharmacists no longer have to interpret the prescriber's handwriting, and your staff members can decrease the time they spend responding to questions about formulary, generic substitution, dosage and prescription readability. E-prescribing also offers automatic, built-in screening for drug interactions and allergies. In addition, providers may review a patient's medication history at the point of care, allowing them to make informed prescribing decision to further improve patient safety.

Lower Costs for Everyone
T-System E-Prescribing incorporates patient registration and insurance information so benefit information can be confirmed before the prescription is even sent to the pharmacy. That way, patients have no medication cost surprises at the pharmacy. And by equipping prescribers with information about the availability of lower cost or generic medications, prescription drug spending can be reduced by up to $3.9 million per 100,000 patients annually³.

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¹ http://www.kff.org/rxdrugs/upload/3057_07.pdf
² http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2011/12/16/surescripts-electronic-prescribing-improves-medication-pick-up-rates/
³ http://www.ahrq.gov/news/press/pr2008/eprescribpr.htm