We’re Living Longer Than Ever; e-Prescribing is Just What the Doctor Ordered to Support an Aging Population
Canada Health Infoway
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Dr. Rashaad Bhyat , Clinician Leader at Canada Health Infoway, shares his perspective on why e-prescribing is an essential tool for enhancing communication within the circle of care when treating patients on multiple medications.
When treating patients on multiple medications, what are some of the hurdles you may encounter using paper or faxed prescription processes?
One of the biggest day-to-day challenges when managing prescriptions arises any time clarifications are required, be it because of a patient question, or a new medication prescribed by a specialist. Often this results in a lot of back and forth between the pharmacy team and the physician, delaying the patient’s care. This becomes particularly challenging when treating patients on multiple medications, because their treatment plan is more complex. Clarifications can take more time, as the pharmacy team or the family physician may need to resolve numerous concerns. For example, what is the intent of a new prescription? How safe is the prescription for the patient in the context of their other medications? Simultaneously, we try our best to help the patient navigate through the changes or overlaps in medications.
How do you think e-prescribing can help address some of these hurdles?
Enhancing communication is at the heart of what e-prescribing does — making it more efficient, more effective and more secure by enabling community based family physicians to digitally transmit prescriptions directly to their patient’s pharmacy of choice. And what I really want to emphasize is, PrescribeIT is not a separate system — it’s integrated into the existing EMR system. So, as a family doctor, you’re using your EMR to generate a prescription as you normally would, but instead of pressing “print,” you can just as easily send it electronically to your patient’s pharmacy. Also, PrescribeIT’s clinical communications tool reduces phone tag, by allowing physicians to exchange secure messages with the pharmacy team directly from the EMR.?
From your perspective, what is the value of e-prescribing when treating patients on several medications?
The old adage was that as family physicians, we’d care for people from the cradle to the grave. We’re all living longer, and many of us are living longer with multiple chronic medical conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and hypertension. This results in more of our patients having complex medical scenarios as they age, and being on multiple medications — which is a risk in itself. So, we need to create efficiencies wherever possible to help physicians and pharmacists manage their day-to-day workload and to enable effective communication within the patient’s circle of care.
EMR-integrated digital tools such as PrescribeIT can be helpful when handling multiple medications, communicating information related to medication management, including allergies, changes in dosage, or drug interactions. As we know, the more medications a patient takes, the higher the chances of medication safety-related issues arising.
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What role do you think digital health tools, like e-prescribing, play in helping to improve the prescription process and patient safety?
One of the biggest risks to patient safety is the lack of efficient communication channels between prescribers and pharmacists. Ultimately, we want to work together to reduce any errors related to the patient’s medications.
A great example of the importance of modernizing communication is eliminating the risk of fax mishaps.
Based on Infoway-CMA survey data from 2021, about 93 per cent of Canadian family physicians are using EMRs, and a lot of those physicians have transitioned to electronic fax, but it’s still vulnerable to error. Imagine someone incorrectly enters a new pharmacy fax number into a physician’s EMR address book database. All of the physicians in that office think they’re sending off prescriptions to a particular pharmacy when in reality, they’re landing somewhere else! Not only does this delay their patients’ care, but there’s enormous potential for privacy breaches.
What do you think needs to happen to ensure e-prescribing remains a permanent part of the way Canadian physicians deliver care?
During the pandemic, we saw a rapid and necessary shift towards digital health solutions. Tools like PrescribeIT are an essential component of delivering care virtually and more efficiently. These digital tools are part of a broader shift in health care delivery that started before, but accelerated during the pandemic. Even over the last year, I’ve noticed more colleagues reaching out about PrescribeIT. We must encourage clinicians, administrators, health care leaders and especially patients to advocate for user-friendly digital health care tools that make care safer, more efficient, more patient-centric and overall a more pleasant experience, enabled by technology.
Click here for more information about PrescribeIT and why e-prescribing is an essential tool for enhancing communication.
Dr. Rashaad Bhyat serves as Clinician Leader at Canada Health Infoway. He is a family physician with a passion for digital health and practices in an EMR-enabled clinic in the Greater Toronto Area.