Taking advantage of the advances in technology to avoid medical prescription errors, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) is chalking out plans for adaptation of e-prescribing of medicines on voluntary basis, said Dr C Srinivasa Raju, chairman, IMA-IT committee.

e-prescribing or electronic prescribing is a viable solution to counter shortcomings of the current paper based prescribing processes which are significantly responsible for the most rampant medical prescription errors. However, accessibility and cost barriers have slowed adapting to e-prescribing by providers, he said in an interaction with Pharmabiz.

According to him, this method will play a unique role in resolving the current crisis in preventable medication errors. IMA is in favour of electronic prescription, mobile health care and e-health provided these measures are encouraged on voluntary basis, but not with legal enforcement, he added.

Regarding the advantages of the method, the doctor said, since it is a fast process, the prescription reaches the pharmacy even before the patient reaches the outlet. Besides, errors occurring to pharmacists while reading the hand-written prescriptions can be avoided.

In view of the Indian context, there are positive and negative implications with e-prescribing. Equipping all pharmacy shops with computer and data entry operators will be a herculean task in a vast country like India. The prescription should be sent electronically through a private, secure, and closed network, but not over the open internet or as e-mail or sms. Likewise, the privacy of the personal health information contained in the prescriptions, whether written or electronic, should be protected by central and state laws, he opined.

The e-prescribing is able to monitor the mandatory prescription of generics which will make available cost-effective and safe medicines that are required now. Further, it will avoid medication errors that impose financial burden on the patient as well as the healthcare system.

Dr Vivek Chabbra, a member of IMA has observed that there are a lot of medical errors emanate from poor prescription writing, which is leading to numerous deaths across the world. e-prescribing is the only solution to prevent such errors and help for record keeping besides increasing the efficiency in delivery of medicine.

According to Dr M C Gupta, medico-legal consultant, New Delhi, the e-prescribing will become part of India’s planned nationwide programme of “Free Distribution of Drugs to People”, to be kick-started by the end of this year. e-prescribing of generic medicines will result in reducing and identifying quacks because the quacks may not be able to write names like ibuprofen, xylometazoline, nifedipine etc., he said.

The Federation of Consumer Organisations of India, in its Shimla Convention of October 6 this year, will discuss the topic of e-prescribing and generic medicines, it is learnt.

In medication therapy, the prescription is a legal document governed by several laws like the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 , The Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette & Ethics) Regulations, 2002 ,The Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and Rules 1945, The Pharmacy Act, 1948 , The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 and Rules 1987 , Drugs (Price Control) Order, 1995, and The Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 and Rules 1955.