The electronic prescription of medicines can lead doctors to choose the least expensive ones and therefore constitute a factor in favor of saving. This is demonstrated by a study conducted in the United States by the agency Decision Resources, on a sample of general practitioners and specialists. Most existing online prescribing systems provide information about the availability of generic medicines and some doctors tend to use this to make the most convenient choice; others instead make use of the data provided by the software for impo! have a discussion with their patients about therapeutic alternatives. An improvement in communication is therefore also obtained, as he points out Jason Mitchell, director of the Center for health IT at the American Academy of Family Physicians (the section which, in the American Association of Family Physicians, deals with the promotion of information technologies). «The real benefit of electronic prescribing – says Mitchell – consists in the enhancement of the two-way interaction between doctor and patient». Soon after the study was released, the marketing agency Ims Health reported that in 2012, US prescription spending fell for the first time since this type of monitoring was done in 1957. The report does not link the reduction in spending to the spread of electronic drug prescribing technology, but the IMS notes that generic prescriptions peaked at 84 % last year and are expected to increase. further in the coming years. According to the Food and Drug Administration, these drugs cost 30% to 80% less than their brand-name counterparts. But pharmaceutical companies could make data about the effectiveness of their drugs available to electronic prescribing software. According to the Decision Resources survey, a significant percentage of doctors would value this information more than the cost of the drug.
April 4, 2013 – DoctorNews33
