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Background: RxChange messages improve patient medication management by enhancing pharmacist-prescriber communication, but their usage patterns in the United States are not well-documented., Objective: To determine intervention characteristics by pharmacists and prescribers using RxChange messages., Methods: A retrospective analysis of electronic prescription and RxChange messages from 2022 to 2023, using data from Surescripts, LLC, was conducted. This included NewRx messages and RxChange Responses, categorized by 7 RxChange use cases and Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical level 4 medication classes. Descriptive statistics and nonparametric tests were used for statistical analysis., Results: The study analyzed 1,361,528 RxChange messages. Therapeutic interchange was the predominant use case (76.14%). Direct approvals accounted for 10.44% of requests, approvals with changes for 42.55%, and denials for 47.01%. Script clarification had the highest approval rate (64.21%), while prior authorization faced the most frequent denials (73.38%). The top denial reason was "Request addressed through alternate methods such as phone or fax (41.50%)." The most frequent drug classes observed in the data were selective beta-2 adrenoreceptor agonists, extended-spectrum penicillins, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and glucagon-like peptide 1 analogues. Time from new e-prescription issuance to RxChange request submission was longer than from request to response, with a significant statistical difference (median 1.57 vs. 0.27 days, P value < 0.05)., Conclusion: This study highlights interventions pharmacists make using RxChange with electronic prescriptions to improve patient care and medication safety. It underlined the need for improved RxChange message content and data on the effectiveness of RxChange messages in improving medication use., Competing Interests: Disclosure The authors declare no relevant conflicts of interest or financial relationships., (Copyright © 2024 American Pharmacists Association®. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Pharmacists have some prescriptive authority in all fifty states through dependent and independent prescribing. Data describing the volume and characteristics of pharmacist prescribing are not widely available, and these insights are critical to gauge the impact of regulations supporting pharmacist prescriptive authority., Objective: To identify trends in pharmacist prescribing and compare them to primary care provider (PCP) prescribing trends by analyzing e-prescriptions initiated from electronic health records systems from 2019 through 2022., Methods: This cross-sectional study used e-prescriptions from a national health information network to identify e-prescriptions ordered by pharmacists and PCPs from January 7, 2019, to January 1, 2023. E-prescriptions ordered by pharmacists and PCPs were analyzed to identify annual volume by prescriber type and most prescribed therapeutic classes. States with the highest volume of e-prescriptions ordered by pharmacists were identified., Results: The number of e-prescriptions prescribed by a pharmacist increased 47% from 2019 (n = 814,726) to 2022 (n = 1,199,601). The number of pharmacists prescribing in 2019 was 1650, and this increased by 122% to 3664 in 2022. The number of e-prescriptions prescribed by PCPs increased by 4% from 2019 (n = 927,890,123) to 2022 (n = 965,803,376) while the number of PCPs prescribing increased by 8% from 2019 (n = 364,995) to 2022 (n = 394,753)., Conclusion: Pharmacist e-prescribing increased across the 4 years studied while PCP e-prescribing modestly increased. Factors like access to technology, such as electronic health records, state regulations, and reimbursement impact a pharmacist's ability to prescribe., Competing Interests: Disclosure The authors declare no relevant conflicts of interest or financial relationships., (Copyright © 2024 American Pharmacists Association®. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Introduction: Oral anticancer therapy is becoming increasingly developed; their prescription has become a common practice in oncology. However, there is a variability and diversity in prescription practice. Its magnitude has been very little studied in scientific literature. To our knowledge, this is the first study in Morocco and North Africa to evaluate the practice of prescribing oral chemotherapy., Methods: The authors conducted a national exhaustive cross-sectional survey, to evaluate the practice of the oral chemotherapy "Capecitabine" type prescription by Moroccan oncologists and to identify strategies to promote an adherence to oral anti-neoplasic therapy., Results: Ninety-one medical oncologists answered out of 118, from public oncology centres (29.7%), Hospital University (58.2%), and private sector (12.1%). Thirty-four of the oncologists replied by email, 33 through phone conversation and 24 by filling paper questionnaires. In total, 32% of the cases were handwritten prescriptions, and 51.6% electronically generated. Forty-six percent of medical oncologists dedicated more time to the oral chemotherapy type Capecitabine prescription versus its intravenous equivalent 5FU. However, 33% medical oncologists take less time to this prescription, and 20.9% of them take the same time. Adherence to oral chemotherapy was evaluated by simply questioning of patients in most of the cases (94%) and 4% of medical oncologist declared that they did not evaluate this adherence. In total, 87.9% of Moroccan medical oncologists revealed that they have not received any specific training in the therapeutic education of the patient with oral anti-cancer treatment., Conclusion: In Morocco, there is a great variability in prescription and follow-up practice for patients receiving oral chemotherapy. There is a lack of a national standardization with regards to the procedures of prescribing and monitoring patients to ensure the quality and safety of the oral chemotherapy prescription., (Copyright © 2021 Société Française du Cancer. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Background: Drug overdose was the leading cause of injury and death in 2013, with drug misuse and abuse causing approximately 2.5 million emergency department (ED) visits in 2011. The Electronic Prescriptions for Controlled Substances (EPCS) program was created with the goal of decreasing rates of prescription opioid addiction, abuse, diversion, and death by making it more difficult to "doctor-shop" and alter prescriptions., Objective: In this study, we describe the opioid-prescribing patterns of emergency physicians after the introduction of the New York State EPCS mandate., Methods: We conducted a retrospective, single-center, descriptive study with a pre-/post-test design. The pre-implementation period used for comparison was April 1-July 31, 2015 and the post-implementation period was April 1-July 31, 2016. All ED discharge prescriptions for opioid medications prior to and after the initiation of New York State EPCS were identified., Results: During the pre-implementation study period, 22,221 patient visits were identified with 1366 patients receiving an opioid prescription. During the post-implementation study period, 22,405 patient visits were identified with 642 patients receiving an opioid prescription. This represented an absolute decrease of 724 (53%) opioid prescriptions (p < 0.0001), which is an absolute difference of 2.3% (95% confidence interval 2.0-2.6%)., Conclusions: There was a significant decline in the overall number of opioid prescriptions after implementation of the New York EPCS mandate., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To validate electronic prescriptions (e-prescriptions) as a method for measuring treatment adherence in patients with hypertension., Methods: This prospective study initially included 120 patients treated for hypertension in primary care centers. Adherence was measured using the gold standard, the medication event monitoring system (MEMS), versus the index test, the e-prescription program, at baseline and at 6, 12, 18 and 24 months. We calculated the adherence rate using the MEMS and the medication possession ratio (MPR) for the e-prescriptions. We considered patients adherent if they had an adherence rate of 80% to 100%. To validate the e-prescription, we obtained measures of diagnostic accuracy, the Kappa concordance index, and the area under the ROC curve (AUC)., Results: We included 102 patients. Overall adherence was 77.4% by MEMS (95%CI: 66.8-88) and 80.4% (95%CI: 70.3-90.5) by MPR. At 24 months, sensitivity was 87% and specificity, 93.7%. The AUC was 0.903 (95%CI: 0.817-0.989)., Conclusion: Measures of treatment adherence were not significantly different between e-prescription and gold standard at most visits, and the e-prescription showed good discriminatory diagnostic capacity., Practice Implications: If patients are included in an e-prescription program for at least 2 years, e-prescription is an inexpensive method to measure adherence in hypertension., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: Medication adherence can be divided into primary and secondary adherence. Primary medication non-adherence (PMN) occurs when a patient does not obtain medicine with their initial prescription. Secondary non-adherence measures prescription refills among patients who previously filled their first prescription. While secondary non-adherence has been studied thoroughly, PMN has been assessed less extensively, due to lack of available data. Estonian ePrescription system might prove a valuable tool for this., Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate PMN and the interval between prescribing and dispensing of medicines using the Estonian ePrescriptions database to establish its potential use for this purpose and for other qualitative drug utilization research measures. Osteoporosis medicines were used as an example., Methods: The Estonian Prescription Centre was used to evaluate if patients purchase medicines after initial prescription of osteoporosis medicine. Prescriptions from 2012 to 2015 of all patients over 18 were included. PMN was defined as the first prescription not being dispensed before it expired (60 days). The rate of PMN was calculated., Results: Estonian ePrescription System enabled fast evaluation of PMN of osteoporosis patients based on data about prescribing, dispensing and time intervals in-between. Of patients who started osteoporosis treatment 13.1% were primary non-adherent. Of primary non-adherent patients 42% still started treatment at some point during the study. Of patients who did purchase their first prescription 80.4% did so within a week and 95% within 25 days., Conclusion: The Estonian ePrescription system is a useful tool for monitoring PMN. The PMN of osteoporosis medicines was identified as lower than previously reported. More similar type of studies about other groups of medicines would be needed to understand the pattern of PMN and give valuable information to healthcare specialists about how to increase initiation of treatment., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: To determine if outpatient pharmacies of an academic medical center inadvertently dispense discontinued medications and, if so, if these inadvertently dispensed prescriptions contribute to subsequent hospital admissions and patient harm., Methods: This was a single-center retrospective chart review. Prescription billing data were analyzed for electronic prescriptions for hypotensives, hypoglycemics, anticoagulants, antiplatelets, and statins picked up from 3 outpatient pharmacies within the health system over a period of 1 year. Prescriptions must have been written by a Michigan Medicine health system provider and were excluded if they were written, faxed, or phoned in. Timestamp of pick-up from the pharmacy was compared with timestamp of prescription discontinuation within the electronic health record (EHR). If the prescription was discontinued before pick-up, timestamps were also assessed to determine if the prescription order was discontinued in the EHR before final pharmacist verification. If a prescription was found to be picked up after it was discontinued, the patient chart was reviewed to determine if he or she was admitted within 30 days of the pick-up date., Results: Overall, 10,649 individual electronic prescriptions met inclusion criteria. Of these, 526 (4.94%) were picked up after the prescription order was discontinued in the EHR. The prescription was discontinued before final pharmacist verification for 287 (54.56%) of these prescriptions. Three of these inadvertently dispensed prescriptions could have contributed to hospital admission 30 days after pick-up for 3 individual patients., Conclusion: Electronic prescriptions that have been discontinued within the EHR continue to be dispensed to patients in the outpatient pharmacy setting. These inadvertently dispensed prescriptions have the potential to cause patient harm., (Copyright © 2018 American Pharmacists Association®. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: To examine long-term opioid dosing trends among Veterans with chronic pain., Methods: We identified 79,015 Veterans with musculoskeletal disorders who were dispensed greater than or equal to 1 opioid prescriptions between 2002 and 2009 after returning from recent conflicts. Opioid-dosing trends were examined using a generalized estimating equation while accounting for patient characteristics, temporal and geographic confounding., Results: In total, 472,819 opioid prescriptions were dispensed (mean ± standard deviation: 6.0 ± 10.1 per Veteran). Both average daily morphine equivalents (MEs/d) and the proportion of high-dose prescribing (greater than 100 ME/d) increased from baseline period (2002-2004) to 2006, then remained relatively stable. Veterans with extended persistent (greater than or equal to 40 days over 1-2 episodes) and extended intermittent (greater than or equal to 40 days over greater than or equal to three episodes) dispensing patterns received more high-dose prescriptions than those dispensed prescriptions less than 40 days, with adjusted odds ratios (95% confidence interval) of 7.2 (6.0-8.8) and 3.6 (3.0-4.3), respectively. Posttraumatic stress disorder and other mental health diagnoses were associated with 30% increased odds of high-dose prescribing., Conclusions: The average daily dose of opioid prescriptions and the likelihood of high-dose prescribing to these Veterans appeared to increase from 2002 to 2006, then remained relatively stable through 2009. Veterans on opioid prescriptions for extended duration or with mental health diagnoses tend to receive higher dose therapy., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

To facilitate personalized drug dosing (PDD), this pilot study explored the communication effectiveness and clinical impact of using a prototype clinical decision support (CDS) system embedded in an electronic health record (EHR) to deliver pharmacogenomic (PGx) information to physicians. We employed a conceptual framework and measurement model to access the impact of physician characteristics (previous experience, awareness, relative advantage, perceived usefulness), technology characteristics (methods of implementation-semi-active/active, actionability-low/high) and a task characteristic (drug prescribed) on communication effectiveness (usefulness, confidence in prescribing decision), and clinical impact (uptake, prescribing intent, change in drug dosing). Physicians performed prescribing tasks using five simulated clinical case scenarios, presented in random order within the prototype PGx-CDS system. Twenty-two physicians completed the study. The proportion of physicians that saw a relative advantage to using PGx-CDS was 83% at the start and 94% at the conclusion of our study. Physicians used semi-active alerts 74-88% of the time. There was no association between previous experience with, awareness of, and belief in a relative advantage of using PGx-CDS and improved uptake. The proportion of physicians reporting confidence in their prescribing decisions decreased significantly after using the prototype PGx-CDS system (p=0.02). Despite decreases in confidence, physicians perceived a relative advantage to using PGx-CDS, viewed semi-active alerts on most occasions, and more frequently changed doses toward doses supported by published evidence. Specifically, sixty-five percent of physicians reduced their dosing, significantly for capecitabine (p=0.002) and mercaptopurine/thioguanine (p=0.03). These findings suggest a need to improve our prototype such that PGx CDS content is more useful and delivered in a way that improves physician's confidence in their prescribing decisions. The greatest increases in communication effectiveness and clinical impact of PGx-CDS are likely to be realized through continued focus on content, content delivery, and tailoring to physician characteristics., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: The impetus of electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) is the reduction of preventable medication errors by generating a legible prescription checked via e-prescribing software for drug-drug and other interactions. Although the adoption of e-prescribing among physicians is growing, the Institute of Medicine's recommendations that all prescriptions be routed electronically by 2010 certainly has not been met., Objectives: To provide an update on e-prescribing use among primary care physicians (PCPs), describe their experience with e-prescribing, and provide insight into prescribers' decisions to implement e-prescribing in their practices., Methods: An Internet-based survey was administered to a national convenience sample of physicians. The respondents were categorized into e-prescribers or non-e-prescribers. Data to describe demographic characteristics, respondents' experiences with e-prescribing, and respondents' decision to implement e-prescribing were collected. Nonparametric tests were used to test differences in the factors influencing e-prescribers' and traditional prescribers' decisions about electronic prescription implementation., Results: Four hundred forty-three PCPs participated in the study. There were no significant differences in the demographic characteristics of e-prescribers and non-e-prescribers. Most e-prescribers (83%) reported satisfaction with their e-prescribing system and a preference for e-prescribing over traditional prescribing. Although 22% of respondents indicated that they have started and stopped e-prescribing, most have resumed or intended to resume e-prescribing in the near future. More than half of the respondents reported that they are experiencing problems with their e-prescribing software., Conclusions: E-prescribing appears to be present in many types of primary care practices and geographic areas of the country. Despite their satisfaction with and preference for e-prescribing, PCPs still appear to be experiencing problems with e-prescribing software. Implications of these study results for the pharmacy profession are discussed., (Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: National recommendations have been issued to define which optimal organization in hospitals could improve the quality of antibiotic prescription. Our aim was to check whether there was a link between applying these national recommendations and the quality of antibiotic prescriptions., Patients and Methods: A prospective study was carried out in three French regional hospitals (A to C), to assess how recommendations were applied. Hospital organization was measured with the ICATB score (antimicrobial stewardship index) and the appropriateness of antibiotic prescription was assessed by an audit during 1 week by two investigators, who shadowed physicians during bedside visits, in various medical and surgical departments., Results: There was a considerable difference in the organization of these three hospitals in terms of computerized prescriptions, formulary restriction, availability of recommendations, and antibiotic consumption defined as delivered daily-dose. Institution A had strictly followed recommendations for hospital organization, but these were less observed in institution B and C. The prevalence of antibiotic treatment was comparable in the three hospitals, and concerned over 25% of patients. In institution A, 60% of antibiotic prescriptions were inadequate, 23% were not appropriate and 17% were optimal. In institution B, these figures reached 36%, 34%, and 34%, while in institution C they reached 25%, 55%, and 20%, respectively., Conclusion: There is no clear link between applying national recommendations for antibiotic prescription and optimization of hospital organization and the quality of antibiotic prescriptions., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.)

Background: Health policy forces are promoting the adoption of interoperable electronic health records (EHRs) with electronic prescribing (e-prescribing). Despite the promise of EHRs with e-prescribing to improve medication safety in ambulatory care settings--where most prescribing occurs and where errors are common--few studies have demonstrated its effectiveness. A study was conducted to assess the effect of an e-prescribing system with clinical decision support, including checks for drug allergies and drug-drug interactions, that was integrated within an EHR on rates of ambulatory prescribing errors., Methods: In a prospective study using a nonrandomized, pre-post design with concurrent controls, 6 providers who used a commercial e-prescribing system were compared with 15 providers who remained paper-based from September 2005 through July 2008. Prescribing errors were identified by a standardized prescription and chart review., Results: Some 2,432 paper prescriptions at baseline and 2,079 prescriptions at one year were analyzed. Error rates for e-prescribing adopters decreased 1.5-fold--from 26.0 errors per 100 prescriptions at baseline (95% confidence interval [CI], 17.4-38.9) to 16.0 errors per 100 prescriptions at one year (95% CI, 12.7-20.2; p = .09). Error rates remained unchanged for nonadopters (37.3 per 100 prescriptions at baseline, 95% CI, 27.6-50.2, versus 38.4 per 100 prescriptions at one year, 95% CI 27.4-53.9; p = .54). Error rates for e-prescribing adopters were significantly lower than for nonadopters at one year (p < .001). Illegibility errors were high at baseline and eliminated by e-prescribing., Conclusions: The preliminary findings from this small group of providers suggest that e-prescribing systems may decrease ambulatory prescribing errors, which are occurring at high rates among community-based providers.

Purpose: In France, the analysis of the prescriptions by a pharmacist in hospital is mandatory since 1991. However, for various reasons, this activity remained poorly developed and little research has been performed. Consequently, this activity suffers of a lack of visibility to hospital decision-makers and others health care professionals. The aim of this paper is to describe drugs related problems identified by pharmacist prescriptions analysis on a large number of orders in a large teaching hospital. This was done in order to highlight recurrent and preventable problems., Methods: During 1 year period, drug related problems detected by pharmacists when performing prescription analysis were registered prospectively., Results: Among 70,849 orders, 7073 drug related problems were registered. Most frequently detected drug related problems were: over dosages, especially with three drugs (zopiclone, zolpidem and acetaminophen) representing more than 10% of the pharmacist's interventions; optimization of drug administration especially with tablets that should not be crushed and intravenous to oral step-down therapy (7.5%); lack of conformity with consensus recommendations and contra-indications (12.8%); drug-drug interactions (11.6%) with a high proportion of absorption inhibition of one drug by another along the digestive tract; problems related to computerized physicians order entry (5.1%) appeared as an emerging phenomenon., Conclusion: These results should be used to reexamine hospital drug prescription policy. They prompt health care professionals to be aware about new medications errors potentially related to computerized prescription order entry. Finally, they invite to modify initial and continuous education programs of health care professionals., (Copyright © 2010 Société nationale française de médecine interne (SNFMI). Published by Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.)

Background: Pharmacists have an important role in detecting, preventing, and solving prescription problems, which if left unresolved, may pose a risk of harming the patient., Objectives: The aim was to examine prescription problems detected at pharmacies in Sweden, where pharmacists consider it necessary to contact the prescribers for clarification, completion or correction of the prescriptions before dispensing, and to compare the intervention rates at public pharmacies at hospitals (PPHs) with those at city center pharmacies (CCPs)., Methods: All attempts to contact the prescriber about a prescription problem were recorded by trained observers (pharmacy students). Analyses were made of overall distribution of problem prescriptions, including data from all 14 participating pharmacies, and a comparison between CCPs and PPHs with data from the 5 areas, each consisting of 1 CCP and 1 PPH (10 pharmacies). Chi-square-analyses were used to compare proportions, Spearman's rank-correlation coefficient was used to test correlation between recorded rates and dispensed volume, and Wilcoxon two-sample test was used to test differences between the CCPs and PPHs. P<.05 is regarded as statistically significant., Results: The pharmacists contacted the prescribers for 1% of all new prescriptions before dispensing. Errors that may compromise patient safety and medication outcome constituted almost 60% of the problems. However, there was an inverse correlation between the intervention rates and the pharmacy's dispensing volume. Significantly lower rates of problem prescriptions were recorded for women than for men. The highest rates were seen for prescriptions to patients younger than 15 years, and the rates decreased with increasing patient age. Pharmacists at PPHs contacted the prescribers about prescription problems twice as often as those at large CCPs. Pharmacists spent an average of 5 minutes on the telephone to solve the problem (median time), but 25% of the prescriptions took 10 minutes or more., Conclusions: Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) and electronically transmitted prescriptions (ETP) can not only reduce the total rate of prescription problems, but also introduce new clinically important errors that may compromise patient safety and medication outcome. The prescription problem rates in the present study differed across prescriber groups and patient age and gender, and the inverse correlation to pharmacy size indicates that all problems are not revealed and corrected and may thus reach the patient. CPOE and ETP have been used extensively in Sweden for the past decade, but the present study indicates that there is still a potential and need for improvement for the vision of "no prescribing errors/problems will reach the patient" to come true., (Copyright 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To measure the incidence and nature of prescribing errors on electronic prescriptions (e-prescriptions) that required active intervention by dispensing pharmacists to correct., Design: Descriptive, nonexperimental, cross-sectional study., Setting: 122 chain community pharmacies that met a prior minimum dispensing volume of five e-prescriptions per day in five states during July through September 2006., Participants: Pharmacists in participating pharmacies., Intervention: A panel of participating pharmacists reported their medication therapy interventions using a standardized documentation protocol., Main Outcome Measures: Number, type, and reason for pharmacist interventions on e-prescriptions., Results: Data were reported from 68 participating chain pharmacies in five states during 312 work shifts. During the study pharmacists reviewed 2,690 e-prescription orders (new, 83.0%; refill, 17.0%) and took action 102 times for an intervention rate of 3.8%. The rate at which pharmacists identified problems on new e-prescriptions was found to be nearly twice that of refills (4.1% and 2.2%, respectively). The most common reason for pharmacists' interventions on e-prescriptions was to supplement omitted information (31.9%), especially missing directions. Dosing errors were also quite common (17.7%). The most common response by pharmacists to e-prescription problems was to contact the prescriber (64.1%), consult the patient's profile or medication history (12.8%), or interview the patient or the patient's representative (9.4%). In most cases (56%), the e-prescription order was changed and the prescription was ultimately dispensed. In 15% of cases the e-prescription was dispensed as written following clarification by the prescriber. In 10% of cases the prescription was not dispensed. An additional 12% of prescription issues remained unresolved. Pharmacists required an average of 6.07 minutes to conduct their interventions on problematic e-prescription orders, representing an incremental dispensing cost of $4.74., Conclusion: Electronic prescribing can improve the safety and effectiveness of patient care. As currently implemented in the community practice setting, this still-emerging technology maintains selected threats to both medication safety and effectiveness, although probably less than handwritten prescriptions. The adoption of selected best practice recommendations by prescribers could improve the safety, effectiveness, and efficiency of e-prescribing.