Electronic prescribing could help increase the percentage of patients who pick up new prescriptions, according to a report by e-prescribing network Surescripts, InformationWeek reports.
The report notes that the technology could curb health care spending by between $140 billion and $240 billion over the next 10 years by improving medication adherence rates (Versel, InformationWeek, 2/2).
Methodology
For the report, Surescripts worked with pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers to quantify the cost savings of e-prescribing.
Researchers analyzed more than 40 million de-identified prescription records and compared the first-fill rate of e-prescriptions with the first-fill rate of medications ordered by paper, phone or fax. A first-fill rate refers to the percentage of patients who picked up a new prescription.
Report Findings
The report found that first-fill medication rates increased by about 10% after physicians adopted e-prescribing technology (Walsh, CMIO, 2/1).
Before physicians adopted e-prescribing technology, researchers found that about 73.2% of prescriptions were delivered to pharmacies and about 69.5% were picked up by patients.
After the adoption of e-prescribing technology, about 81.8% of prescriptions were delivered to pharmacies and about 76.5% were picked up by patients. During this post-adoption period, physicians sent about 30% to 40% of their prescriptions electronically. Surescripts noted that it would expect 100% of prescriptions to make it to pharmacies if doctors sent all of their prescriptions electronically (Surescripts release, 2/1).
Prescription Abandonment
Surescripts noted that previous studies have found that e-prescriptions are more likely than traditional prescriptions to never get picked up from a pharmacy. However, researchers attributed the higher "prescription abandonment" to the fact that nearly all e-prescriptions are sent to pharmacies, while many paper prescriptions never get dropped off.
According to a 2010 study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, up to 28% of paper prescriptions never make it to a pharmacy.
Ken Majkowski -- vice president of strategy and innovation at Surescripts -- said, "Our study suggests that, compared to the true abandonment rate of paper prescriptions, e-prescriptions are actually abandoned at a far lower rate" (Goedert, Health Data Management, 2/1).