ePrescribing
February 9, 2023
The AMA believes that an integrated health system is key to continuity and quality of patient care. ePrescribing, and closed loop ordering in general, has the potential to improve patient care, and reduce administrative workload.
ePrescribing has the potential to reduce errors and streamline the prescribing and dispensing process for both physicians and pharmacists.
The benefits of ePrescribing will vary depending on aspects such as:
- Features and capabilities of the solution
- Integration with your EMR
- Alignment with your clinic workflows, and
- Pharmacy uptake
Adopting an ePrescribing Tool
There are pros and cons to all tools and we strongly encourage that you investigate with the ePrescribing vendor, your EMR vendor and other users to ensure that any solution fits with and improves your clinic workflow.
It’s important that you do your due diligence in advance of making a decision. The more information you have on system capabilities, the fewer frustrations you will have when adopting a new tool. The following are some things to consider before adopting an ePrescribing tool:
- Consider feedback and advice from other physicians and clinics using the tool.
- Ensure prescribing processes such as electronic renewals, deprescribing and messaging handling complement your clinic work flow.
- If needed, can you direct incoming messages to your clinic staff?
- Can you message the pharmacist?
- Can you include notes in your message? (e.g., current blood pressure, kidney function.)
- Do the security features (e.g., two factor authentication) align with your EMR login workflow?
- Are pharmacies in your region using the tool?
- How are narcotic prescriptions handled?
- Confirm the solution is integrated effectively within your EMR and the patient chart.
- Ask prospective software vendors about current challenges and the plan for improvements and enhancements.
- Review the End User License Agreement and Information Management Agreement to ensure the patient data and your interests are protected.
- The digital health landscape is constantly evolving. Ensure that there is an option to back out and save your data if for some reason you choose to not continue using that specific tool.
EMR ePrescribing Tools
Most EMRs will have ePrescribing modules. In Alberta, Accuro users currently integrate with the FreedomRx service, the remainder of the EMRs integrate with PrescribeIT.
For information on ePrescribing options in your EMR, contact your EMR vendor directly.
ePrescribing Services
ePrescribing services are the back end solutions, integrated with community EMRs and pharmacies, that allow for community EMRs to communicate directly with pharmacy point of care systems, reducing the need for paper prescriptions and phone calls.
PrescribeIT
Canada Health Infoway is working with Health Canada, the provinces and territories and industry stakeholders to operate and maintain PrescribeIT, a national e-prescribing service.
Since 2019, the Infoway team has been working with EMR vendors and pharmacies in Alberta to increase the availability and viability of the solution. PrescribeIT® is now available to all physicians in Alberta.
PrescribeIT enables prescribers to electronically transmit a prescription directly from an electronic medical record to the pharmacy management system of a patient’s pharmacy of choice.
PrescribeIT also enhances communication between physicians and pharmacists by replacing fax or phone calls with secure clinical communications.
For more information and to get started with PrescribeIT® visit www.PrescribeIT.ca/Alberta or contact Anne Baldwin at abaldwin@infoway-inforoute.ca.
FreedomRx
FreedomRx has been developed by QHR Technologies and is currently only available to QHR customers. It’s live in several provinces and mainly Loblaw pharmacies.
The FreedomRx team is working to partner with more pharmacies to ensure QHR customers can access the pharmacies most used by their patients.
Along with digital prescriptions, FreedomRx offers secure messaging between pharmacists and physicians.
