Is Your Organization Ready for e-Prescribing? Part I
The past several years have witnessed an explosion in the automation of healthcare practices and medicine. And while the adoption of electronic prescribing will undoubtedly yield a variety of benefits to physicians, consumers and payers, there are several organizational factors you must consider before implementing a system of this nature.
For e-Prescribing to provide significant value, your staff must utilize the system and, in turn, the e-Prescribing system must deliver the functions desired and required by your organization. The purpose of this article is to provide a framework for the knowledgeable consideration and implementation of an electronic prescribing system. Over the next two blogs I will present a few important elements to think about when faced with the question, ‘What factors do I need to consider ensuring a successful implementation of an electronic prescribing application?”
Current Practice Management System
What practice management system is your organization currently using? Does the system have the ability to export a variety of consumer information to the eprescribing system, thus eliminating duplicate entry? If your staff needs to do duplicate consumer demographic entry into an e-Prescribing application, it could hinder adoption and efficiency of the system.
Prescriber Adoption and Training
How many prescribers will be using the system? What is their attitude about adopting e-Prescribing technology? Will their schedules allow for necessary training? If a large number of prescribers will use the system, training will likely need to be grouped. Doctors must schedule time to attend the training without overburdening their schedules, and adequate training facilities will be required to accommodate Web-based training for large groups of people.
Leadership in the Organization
Is there a clear message from the top leadership of the organization supporting the adoption of electronic prescribing? There must be a strong statement of support for the project from the executive management team, from both organizational and technology perspectives. If your leaders give the impression that e-Prescribing is optional, adoption will be spotty at best.
Stay tuned for Part II...
Posted by: Suz. on Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Hi Chuck, great blog you have here, as it points out many of the issues our organization faced when implementing Infoscriber. We have been successful in our physician "buy in" of the product, and even have witnessed our biggest naysayer do a complete turnabout in her opinion of the e-prescribing; she is, in fact, one of our biggest advocates of Infoscriber. Our only issue is the requirement that the docs/nurse practitioners have where the diagnoses must be entered in both Avatar and Infoscriber. I'm hoping that this will be addressed in the future so that one will populate the other and vice versa. Looking forward to reading Part II. :-)