I work for a TPA in the medical industry and this blog hits directly home.

Doctors and computers mix like water and oil. With a patient load, doctors don’t often have the time to sit down and use a computer, thus, it’s faster to write it out.

Moreso, doctors often aren’t trained properly in the use of the program to which they’re supposed to use and this too leads to the dismissal of technology.

In many clinics, it’s usually left to office personnel to “fill” the prescription, even going as far as setting it up to the patient’s pharmacy.

This is no different than a patient not looking at the prescription to determine if they can read it, which would be the first indication of a possible problem.

Filling out a short form like that isn’t significantly faster or more convenient with mouse and keyboard than with a biro, and electronic transmission invites all sorts of potential security problems. Besides, just taking a reasonable degree of care with one’s handwriting should solve the problem, as would pharmacists telephoning the doctor’s surgery to double-check if they weren’t certain.

Doctors scribble illegibly on prescription pads because they don’t know the exact spelling of the drug and don’t want to be embarrassed by a mere pharmacist. The pharmacy will always call the doctors office anyways to confirm that the doctor wrote the prescription and what it was for. A prescription pad is hardly a secure document and could be easily forged.

I am a developer at an EHR software company. In our software (and all other EHR software, I assume), medication orders are placed in the software and Rx’s are either printed off or sent via fax or eRx to a pharmacy. The only thing holding doctors and medical centers back is their own adoption of EHR systems. It is faster that hand writing the Rx, because it is a natural byproduct of documenting the patient visit in the EHR. Some doctors don’t like recording their visits in the EHR, but often do not have a choice (practice policy).

Why not have a pharmaceutically-knowledgeable person working behind the reception desk that you would hand you’re hand-written prescription to, that would do the “high-tech” task of sending it electronically to the nearest pharmacy of choice.
Also, would it kill the MD to legibly write the name of the prescription to avoid any confusion. What do they accomplish by doing this? I have had several times with my doctor where the pharmacy has to call him to confirm the medication. A complete waste of my and their time.

I love the way my current doctor does prescriptions. They are entered into a computer, printed out and then handed to me to take to the pharmacy. This is the first doctor I have had that does this.

Previous doctors I have had have scribbled it down and the pharmacy has even had to call the doctor and ask what it was before. This could have led to the wrong prescription easily. Would be nice if all doctors did at least enter them into a computer and print them out.

My doctors have small laptops they carry around. I get visit card when I check in and verify my insurance. I can fill out my forms on a computer or hand write them (which get’s keyed by the clerk) I go to my doctors office after that scan the card which at the receiption desk and wait for my name to be called. Doctor/nurse scans the card enters in the medical information and enters in the script and either sends it to my drug store or prints it out. Lab/Radology/etc give them the card and they know what needs to be done. Return the card the cashier and pay my deductible. My scripts are unsually filled by the time I get to the drug store. I like it seems convienent, but these are young Doctors, the cool thing is their system allows them find new meds and alternative or new drug issues right then and there. As well as providing them a history or scripts if an issue arises and they can call and tell me to stop taking the script.

I work as a contractor for ZixCorp. What I do is set up a wifi access point and a wifi enabled PDA that runs an app called PocketScript.

From the exam room, the doctor can prescribe any drug and send it to any pharmacy in the US. It may take a few seconds longer to write it on the handheld but the benefits outweigh any possible negative.

Doctors in private practice make money based on how many patients they can see in a day. The less time they have to spend on the phone with a pharmacy or an insurance company, the more patients they can see.

Doctors can see a patients insurance formulary right on the handheld or on the desktop. They know that when they prescribe for that patient, they won’t be receiving a callback from a pharmacist who wants to make sure that an alternative is okay.

The patients like that they can go to their pharmacy and the script will be ready.

The insurance companies like it because they dont have to pay more for drugs that are not on formulary.

The docs like that they have instant access to a patients medication history without having to dig through a chart. They can also get trend information, find out how many of their patients are on a particular drug or print out a drug list for a patient.

I always ask that my scrip be called in to my pharmacy so it’s waiting for me when I get there. The doc hands the written scrip to the nurse (or other office personnel, as I can’t be sure that she’s a nurne, no nametag, even the office manager wears scrubs), who’s used to his handwriting, who then calls it in.

Is this so hard? It’s not any different than me handing the scrip to my pharmacist, with the additional layer of security because the nurse has to look at and read the scrip and can catch problems and mistakes as well as the pharmacist can. Beter, prolly, because the nurse has seen my chart and the pharm tech hasn’t.

Once, when I was pregnant with my first child, I was prescribed a med for headaches that I took to my pharmacy. By the time I had gotten there, the nurse from the office had already called frantically telling them not to fill it, because it causes deformities in unborn children. The pharmacist told me that the nurse had noticed the problem when she was logging it all into my records. Thanks, nurse!

He was a reasonably good doctor, but he wasn’t my regular doctor, he wasn’t an OB/GYN and he didn’t see that part of the chart. He made a small mistake that could have caused irreversible damage to my child.

Extra layers of people are good.

Some coverage policies in Canada specify that prescriptions, especially for controlled substances, must be hand-written.

I think that largely though, the reason is going to be that they are accustomed to writing the prescriptions by hand. Tablet PC + spending time training software to recognize the quirks of their hand writing [plus having a nurse double-check it to give the patient a printed copy receipt while an electronic copy is sent to pharmacy – or an online prescription storage service, so that the patient can go to pharmacy of insurance company’s choice to have it filled]

One of my family physicians had started using a small laptop in office, but typing – but this is his second year after finishing his residency, so adjusting to doing things in a different way is simpler than trying to re-learn 20+ years of a system of doing things.

I think the thought of ‘must be hand-written’ is based in the early 90s, before secure electronic prescription systems were developed as thoroughly, before most outlying cities had reliable affordable secured connectivity, with the thought of ‘well, if it can be printed out at the office, then what is to stop a patient from duplicating it?’

I know that I have had the pharmacy randomly decide that they want to switch one of my medications in the past, because they didn’t think the doctor had written it correctly [but he had, the tech just didn’t know what he was specifying and didn’t bother to phone to check]. I didn’t have a clue, and ended up really unhealthy as a result for four months before we clued into my prescription being filled wrong – same medication, different formulation than it should have been. Pharmacy told me it was my fault for having ‘uncommon medications’ 🙁

ur an idiot

Compound Pharmacy has gained much popularity in the field of medicine. The medications are equally effective and safe for sick patients who cannot take the actual medications due to their personal allergies.

Most doctors have the GOD complex. We are at their mercy. They take kickbacks from the pharmaceutical companies for prescribing their medicines. I must say that not ALL doctors are like this. There are a few that are nice and have a good bedside manner and actually care about people. Many only care about their one patient that never gets sick in theirs eyes….Benjamin Franklin. In the last two years and 8 months my wife has been to 5 hospitals including the Cleveland Clinic and has seen 8 doctor of varying expertise. No one, but no one has helped her. She has a parasitic infection that was discovered in June 2008. One “Einstein” wanted to do skin grafts (we didn’t let him) and had her come back 11 times just to say “oh, it seems to be getting better”. It wasn’t. He was just soaking our health insurance company. Another nearly severed her ear with a non sterile scalpel. One proclaimed that “no parasites exist in this county! Another doctor that was supposed to be a specialist with parasites was from another country was an absolute moron with the worst bed side manner I have ever witnessed. “No worm, I see no worms!” He didn’t do a damn thing except he prescribed an antibiotic for her that did nothing. 20 pills – $1500. We hold a record at a local drug store. I wouldn’t have minded if it had worked. We even told our story to the show “Monsters Inside Me” but they never called. The renowned Cleveland Clinic was the worst. We drove 100 miles on a very snow night (that sounds overly dramatic but it’s the truth) and the first doctor would barely come near my wife when she saw the extent of the infection. She left the room and we waited an hour only to be told by another doctor wannabe that the infectious disease department was closed on the weekends! WHAT! If we were noteworthy people in Cleveland, people with influence and money, daughter of the Mayor, rich banker, lawyer, President of the United States…don’t you think they would have called in people immediately? Sure they would. That’s because MONEY TALKS! We are nobodies. I am sick of doctors playing god, I am sick of the fact that they can’t write English properly. What do they do in medical school, take special courses in scribbling? Kindergartners can write better. Insurance companies and doctors are why the USA’s health care system is a mess. And why is that? It also goes back to Benjamin Franklin. It’s all about the Benjamins. If Benjamin knew his likeness was on the $100 bill he would be dreadfully embarrassed. My rant, which is the same as spitting in the ocean, is over. There’s a lot more but I’m done. This message would be too long if I were to tell the whole story of what my wife has been through. No wait…one more thing, why don’t doctors put aside their massive egos and say, ” You know, I don’t know what that is but I assure you that I am going to contact some of my colleagues and find out what it is and how to treat it!” That never happened. OK, I’m done.

SomaGenix Pharma Ltd.
Somagenix,a leading supplier of API’s and steroid hormone powders in Hong Kong. Our state of the art facility employs top chemical engineers and technicians while meeting quality assurance and compliance with North American and European standards. Our company allocates a substantial percentage of its investment towards Research and Development as we believe it is crucial in meeting market demands and innovation.