This Frost & Sullivan research service titled U.S. e-Prescribing Market among Ambulatory Care Providers provides forecasts on the market size, number of physicians of various sizes of practices prescribing electronically, and competitive e-prescribing products. In this research, Frost & Sullivan's expert analysts thoroughly examine small-, medium- and large-sized ambulatory physician practices.
Cost-effective, Consolidated e-Prescribing Systems Backed by Competitive Pre- and Post-sale Services to Increase Adoption among Ambulatory Physicians
The adoption rates of e-prescribing and electronic medical record (EMR) systems are on the upswing, as prescribers in the ambulatory care segment are increasingly realizing their ability to save lives and costs, through clinical automation. The participants can lure more end users by increasing incentives and simple pay-for-performance programs, while government regulations that mandate e-prescriptions could offer an additional thrust. However, several issues such as initial and maintenance costs (especially pertinent among small- and medium-sized physician practices), training issues, and difficulties in upgrading need to be addressed before e-prescribing solutions can be mandated. Vendors can build a comprehensive product that includes practice management systems (PMS), computerized physician order entry (CPOE), and integrated to EMR to automate the entire clinical and management workflow of a physician's practice to save work load of staff and licensing costs.
The increasing sales of EMR systems among ambulatory physicians have boosted the total e-prescribing market, since it directly affects the adoption rates of all clinical automation solutions. EMR vendors either provide e-prescribing solution as a part of their clinical automation suite or integrate it with e-prescribing solution modules from other vendors. "Employer-sponsored and payer-sponsored e-prescribing systems are being increasingly implemented," says the analyst of this research service. "The prices of various e-prescribing systems have been reduced; in fact, free, downloadable e-prescribing systems are available for beginners." System vendors are making the training programs for physicians more effective, while some others are developing easy-to-use, self-explanatory systems for comfortable adoption.
Improved Interoperability among Various Clinical Automation Systems to Enhance Uptake of e-Prescribing Solutions
Some of the reasons for e-prescribing systems not experiencing optimum sales are the limitations on e-prescription of controlled drugs, which cannot be prescribed electronically for security and misusage reasons, and the inter operability issues among various clinical automation systems. Market participants can be challenged by interoperability issues when the physician already uses clinical automation solutions such as practice management from another vendor. To offset this concern, vendors need to develop systems that can be easily integrated into other clinical automation tools and solutions.
Meanwhile, regulatory bodies should draw up the guidelines and criteria that need to be satisfied for enabling the e-prescription of controlled drugs. They can demand additional online checks and authorizations to ensure that the process is tamper-proof. "There are also government and regulatory body mandates, by which health plan reimbursement would be increased when claims are submitted electronically," notes the analyst. "It is, therefore, almost compulsory for most of the providers in the country to have e-prescribing systems integrated into their practices."
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