Internet Revolution and Medicine

Role of Informatics in Healthcare The author of this report has been asked to find an electronic service or mechanism that is involved with the prescription of medications. The source will be identified and explained in terms of how it can be of benefit in a clinical setting. The types of information that it will provide will be listed but there will also be some limitations that need to be pointed out as well.

The cost that will be associated with the service or product will be assessed and there will be an assessment as to whether that cost is reasonable and proper. The limitations related to the cost will be summarized as well. Whether or not the overall service or program is useful will be mentioned. While E-Prescribing cannot be used in all applications and situations, it is an idea that has emerged as common-sense and ready for extensive use.

Analysis The service or item that will be mentioned as far as electronically prescribing medications is the general art and function of prescribing electronically, referred to by the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) as e-prescribing. Indeed, the HRSA is a wing of the United States Department of Health & Human Services. The HRSA described e-prescribing as "an important tool to safely and efficiently manage patients' medications" (HRSA, 2015).

While some may be concerned about the security and safety of the practice, the amount of benefit and time saved from the use of e-prescribing is absolutely astounding. Indeed, there are 902 million physician office vists in the United States every year. Concurrently, there are 3.42 billion outpatient prescriptions…and this was back in 2006. However, out of that huge pool of prescriptions, only about 35 million were done on an electronic basis.

This is all despite the fact that there are (and still are, in many forms) a lot of errors in terms of medication dose, medication name, medication combinations/adverse reactions and so forth. The benefits to using electronic prescriptions is immeasurable and the HRSA gives several examples to justify and prove this. First, they state that there is less need to rely on phone calls to and from pharmacies. Second, they state that there is a staggering increase in patient convenience and medication compliance.

Benefits of e-prescribing include, as mentioned by product/service provider SureScripts, things like automated clinical messaging, basic messaging, electronic healthcare records integration and so forth. There would certainly be a cost involved but it has to pale in comparison to the time and labor saved by using keystrokes and electronic communication methods rather than the pen, paper and word of mouth. However, some limitations are that there are varying providers out there, errors are still possible, some medications (e.g.

controlled substances) cannot be doled out via electronic prescription and so forth. However, as the technology is more widely used and it matures, the efficacy should rise. Conclusion All new technologies require an.