Perceptions of Prescribers towards Electronic Prescription: A Pre-Implementation Evaluation

Abstract

Objective: Electronic (e) prescribing is computerised prescribing. The Government of Kerala has started the e-health initiative. The objective of this study was to obtain the perceptions of prescribing doctors on e-prescription before its implementation. Method: This was a questionnaire based cross sectional study conducted for a period of six months in a Government tertiary care teaching hospital of Kerala. The prescribing doctors of the institution formed the sample population. The response to the structured questionnaire was measured on Likert scale. Data were analysed using SPSS 16. Domain scores of perceived usefulness, ease of use and fitness to the Institution were calculated by averaging the response. Chi square test was done to find the association of score of each domain with independent variables. Results: Two hundred and fifty seven prescribing doctors of age range 22-60 years participated of which 49% were females and 51% males. Response rate was 73% (257/350). Although 70.5% have heard of e-prescriptions only 14% participants had hands on exposure. The mean perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and fitness were 3.5±0.47, 3.35± 0.49 and 2.95 ± 0.44. Conclusion: Dislike for paper prescriptions was the single most important factor associated with perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived fitness of e-prescription in the institution. Information technology training and infrastructure development should go hand in hand with implementation of e-prescribing. Key words: Electronic prescribing, Electronic prescription, Medication error, Health Information Technology. Key Messages: For successful implementation of electronic prescriptions, training and technologically developed settings is a must. Educating the prescribers on preventable medication errors associated with paper prescriptions can lead to the acceptance of e-prescribing. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the author is credited and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.

Doctors’ Perceptions of E-Prescribing upon Its Mandatory Adoption in Poland, Using the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology Method

“…A survey conducted in India in 2018 proved that only 45% of local doctors agreed that electronic prescribing was faster and easier than traditional prescribing. In addition, 35.8% of the Indian respondents stated that e-prescribing interrupted their workflow [ 31 ]. E-prescribing may only be fully accepted by doctors if they are strongly convinced that the technology has a positive impact on their effectiveness and efficiency [ 16 ].…”

“…An Indian survey indicated that around 60% of Indian doctors had experienced technical problems and needed regular support [ 31 ]. In turn, a Chinese study confirmed the hypothesis that the greater organisational support that exists at the healthcare centre level, the use of e-prescribing will be more widespread [ 35 ].…”

Evaluating physicians’ perspectives on the efficiency and effectiveness of the electronic prescribing system

“…One of the systems currently used in healthcare centers is the electronic prescribing system. The electronic prescribing system uses computerized communication networks to store and transfer physician orders to the pharmacy at the point of care (1;2). Previous studies (2–9) have shown that using the electronic prescribing system enhances the efficiency of care providers, improves patient safety, reduces medical costs, increases the effectiveness of services provided, enables access to the patient's medication history and the monitoring of medication interactions, improves medical outcomes, and reduces healthcare expenses.…”

Evaluating physicians' perspective on the efficiency and effectiveness of the electronic prescribing system

“…One of the systems currently used in medical centers is the electronic prescribing system. The electronic prescribing system uses computerized communication networks to store and transfer physician orders to the pharmacy at the point of care [1,2]. Previous studies [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] have shown that using the electronic prescribing system enhances the efficiency of care providers, improves patient safety, reduces medical costs, increases the effectiveness of services provided, enables access to the patient's medication history and the monitoring of medication interactions, improves medical outcomes and reduces health care expenses.…”