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Letters to the Editor
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Electronic prescribing
Electronic prescribing is not a holy grail
From Mr R. A. Forde, MRPharmS
I would like to correct some inaccuracies portrayed in a recent Broad
spectrum article about
e-prescribing (PJ, 3 April, p412).
e-Prescribing has not been sidelined by the NHS IT agenda. It is part
of the core product definition signed up to by local service providers
(LSPs). Due to its nature, roll-out of e-prescribing may be delayed within
the overall electronic prescription record development, but it is not
sidelined. Examples of successful, general roll-outs of e-prescribing
are not an elusive holy grail. I will cite Queen’s Hospital Burton-on-Trent,
Liverpool Women’s Hospital, and Sunderland City Hospitals (which
has rolled out inpatient e-prescribing to over 30 wards in just under
15 months). In the next few weeks, my hospital will start a full roll-out
through surgery and medicine after completing a successful pilot and
project reconfiguration. These are real examples that have not been publicised
greatly because the focus has been on delivery and modest achievement.
If the article’s author believes that JAC is “the one IT
supplier that appears to be making significant progress with the development
of an electronic prescribing solution”, he is mistaken. All of
the above-mentioned hospitals work with a total EPR supplier, Meditech,
and although the system has had its critics from hospitals that do not
use it, there is little substantiated criticism from those that do.
Equally, there is no definition of what e-prescribing is to entail in
its entirety. For example, should
e-prescribing interact with a pathology module? Even successful hospitals
do not have 100 per cent electronic prescriptions: there is a manual
interface with the stock control system. It will always be difficult
to proclaim “significant progress” until one knows what one
is progressing towards and such declarations should be treated with scepticism.
For those IT professionals who perceive e-prescribing as being difficult
to implement, I advise them to speak to those who have done it. What
they will find is that e-prescribing requires a lot of hard work, dedication
from a committed team of staff, and good project management. But it is
not impossible; it can be done safely and it is not a holy grail.
Robert Forde
Meditech Pharmacy and Electronic Prescribing Manager
Countess of Chester NHS Foundation Trust
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal