Analysis of Interventions Performed on Electronic Versus Traditional Prescriptions

Class of 2010 AbstractOBJECTIVES: To investigate whether the use of electronic-prescriptions reduces the amount of interventions being performed by pharmacists in a retail community setting. METHODS: Investigators directly observed local community pharmacist for a period of 3 weeks, during the working hours of 9am to 6pm. Information recorded with each intervention was the type of prescription, drug in question, reasons for intervention, final outcome, and time spent performing intervention. RESULTS: After 3 weeks of direct observation a total of 21 interventions were performed on electronic-prescriptions versus 154 interventions on other types of prescriptions (handwritten, faxed, verbal). The percentage of prescriptions that needed interventions was 11.7% of electronic-prescriptions versus 10.3% of all other types (p = 0.565). CONCLUSIONS: In this limited study, the rate of interventions appears to be similar between electronic-prescriptions and other types of prescriptions as a whole.This item is part of the Pharmacy Student Research Projects collection, made available by the College of Pharmacy and the University Libraries at the University of Arizona. For more information about items in this collection, please contact Jennifer Martin, Librarian and Clinical Instructor, Pharmacy Practice and Science, jenmartin@email.arizona.edu