Assessing the Attitude of the Physicians towards e-prescribing in Chennai

Abstract

Electronic prescribing simply means writing the prescriptions with the support of hand held personal digital assistant and touch screen or it could be typed in using a laptop or a personal computer. E-prescribing also is referred to as a means of sending prescriptions electronically from a doctor to a pharmacist or a patient. However, in either case, there should be minimal or no usage of paper is strictly adhered to (Spooner, 2005). Although e-prescription has many benefits associated with it, the adoption rate in the country is very less. Many factors could be attributed to the slow adoption of e-prescription out of which the attitude of physicians play a major role. Therefore the study aims to assess the efficiency of using e-prescribing facility. This is a descriptive study which involves analysis of the collected data through questionnaire. Simple random technique of selecting the samples was used. Hundred physicians were approached with the help of the consultancy, out of which 90 physician responded. Survey was also conducted through mail. The result shows that majority of the physicians had positive attitude towards e-prescription. The experience of the physician and E-prescribing facility helps to spend lesser time on prescribing the drugs when compared to hand written prescribing (P<0.05). The electronic prescriptions will improve the competence of health care system, when the physicians start using it in their practice. The greatest challenge in e-prescribing is there is no standard guidelines, cost incurred, security and confidentiality of the information prescribed by the physician.