| · Pharmacy education
· Big Conversation
· Electronic prescribing
· Advertising
· Statins
· Free movement in Europe
· St John's wort
· The profession
· The Journal
Letters to the Editor
|
Electronic prescribing
Electronic prescribing must be introduced for the right reasons
From Mr A. Barker, MRPharmS
Lord Warner’s announcement (PJ, 19 June, p755) that the introduction
of hospital electronic prescribing is being brought forward to 2006 should
be welcomed. However, the rationale for this decision appears to be a little
suspect. Although electronic prescribing will deliver the ability to conduct
prospective audit, and feedback, on the use of National Institute for Clinical
Excellence recommended medicines, this should not be a prime reason for
its introduction.
There is no doubt that electronic prescribing will make a major contribution
to increasing patient safety and the quality of clinical care and, if it
is to achieve the level of clinician support that will be required for
successful implementation, these must be the reasons for its introduction.
Already our own limited experience of implementing electronic prescribing
has resulted in improvements in the quality of prescribing, with approaching
10 per cent of prescribing transactions being modified by the provision
of online decision support. However, the improvements we have seen have
not been restricted to prescribing. Electronic clinical pharmacist verification
and administration recording, together with full integration with pharmacy
stock control, have led to significant improvements in the safety, quality
and efficiency of other medicines-related activities.
We must guard against any acceleration of the development of electronic
prescribing resulting in loss of potential major advantages that a more
prolonged gestation period may provide. My concern is that if the focus
of the development is on “mechanisms to allow prospective audit and
feedback on usage of drugs” we may well end up with little more than
electronic “order communications” for medicines, with many
of the potential improvements in patient safety and the quality of clinical
care that could be offered by a fully integrated prescribing administration
and medicines management system being lost along the way.
After all, reasonable information on the use of NICE recommended medicines
can already be provided by existing hospital pharmacy computer systems
and any shortfall in uptake of NICE recommendations is more likely to be
due to lack of resources than lack of information.
Andrew Barker
Clinical Director — Pharmacy and Medicines Management
Doncaster & Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal