Uptake of e-prescription technology held back by poor interoperability and GUIs

Hospitals are failing to take advantage of e-prescription technology due to the solutions not being sophisticated enough to integrate with current IT systems.

This is according to research by industry analysts Ovum, which suggests that vendors are not developing interoperable e-prescription systems.

“E-prescribing not only delivers cost savings, but also improves patient care and reduces the number of prescription errors,” said Andrew Brosnan, Ovum analyst.

“It also streamlines the dispensing process for patients, and provides practitioners with medication histories, reducing fraud. However, despite the many benefits, actual use of the solutions remains low, particularly in the US,” he added.

Ovum argues that solutions in the market do not allow for easy integration with a hospital’s current IT system, and that user interfaces are not intuitive for health practitioners.

“The high upfront costs and patient confidentiality are two of the reasons for this [low uptake], but a major cause of resistance to the adoption is a pervasive sense that the IT solutions currently available have not yet achieved the level of sophistication that will be required to mesh seamlessly with other IT programmes and systems. This is of great concern to prescribers,” said Brosnan.

“Physicians also say that cumbersome interfaces and difficulty recalling patient medical records need to be improved as they increase the time it takes to write a prescription, affecting the value they hold over paper-based prescriptions,” he added.

“Improving the interoperability of software will enhance perceived value to users, enabling the market as a whole to grow. Until these issues are ironed out, widespread adoption of e-prescribing is unlikely to happen.”