Thursday, June 5, 2008

e-Prescribing

The WSJ is reporting that doctors in the U.S. will now be penalized for not e-Prescribing by Medicare. I tried to have our system converted to e-Prescribing and have been told that not only is it not on the radar in Canada yet but it's not legal (all prescriptions still need to be signed). I understand the government is just now starting to look at legislation to allow it. Has anyone else heard anything? Which countries currently allow it?

3 comments:

Joe Black said...

Hi Ian

I use the Pharmaceutical Information Program - known as PIP, to prescribe directly to the drug plan.

It works phenomenally well - I can see all the medications the patient is on, how many renewals, who prescribed it etc. I can see which medications is on EDS, the program checks automatically for interactions, will warn about ingredient duplication and even suggest doses!

I have spoken at a few meetings about this, but the uptake is slow.

We still have to print the scripts though and give it to the patient or fax it. It appears immeditely at every pharmacy who uses the PIP viewer (the viewer allows viewing, but no script abilities)

We have 100% reduced double doctoring, narcotic seeking behaviour and can access any patient at any time.

It is the best system since the script pad, and is fully legible.

Ian Furst said...

thanks -- I also found these two links -- still need to look at Ontario legislation.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/ehealth-esante/e_presc-ord_elec-eng.php

http://www.longwoods.com/product.php?productid=19335&cat=514

Anonymous said...

Hello Ian,

There is a new system on the market used by over 2000 doctors in Ontario and Quebec up to now, it is the ZRx Prescriber made by Zoommed Inc. (www.zoommed.com). It is a publicly traded company so you can have all kind of information on them on the net. They are right now raising money to open an office in BC to address the West Coast market.