Focus on: information technology. Electronic prescribing: an update.

Abstract

Electronic prescribing has been gaining momentum with the passage of recent federal legislation. This article attempts to present the current status of e-prescribing. "Electronic communications between physicians and pharmacists is being recognized as the new standard of practice in the health care industry," said Kevin Hutchinson, SureScripts president and CEO. I am not sure I would go that far yet, but electronic prescribing has come a long way since 1998 when Drs. Schiff and Rucker wrote in the American Medical News: "Physicians should never again write a prescription. Given the explosion of scientific information and advances in computer technology, prescribing medications on a blank piece of paper will soon seem as antiquated as ordering tinctures of botanicals in Latin." The benefits of electronic prescribing have been, and continue to be, touted in many articles written, even in lay literature.