*these authors contributed equally Corresponding Author:

• Main Authors: Jennifer L Phillips, Bsc Jennifer, M Shea, Phd Valerie Leung, Bsc Pharm, Mba Don Macdonald
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Canada; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.673.1792; http://medinform.jmir.org/article/viewFile/medinform_v3i1e2/2/

Background: Electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) can potentially help prevent medication errors. As the use of e-prescribing increases across Canada, understanding the benefits and gaps of early e-prescribing can help inform deployment of future e-prescribing systems. Objective: The purpose of this exploratory study was to determine the prevalence of, reasons for, and average time taken for pharmacist clarification calls to prescribers for electronic medical record (EMR)-generated and handwritten prescriptions. Methods: Four community pharmacies in St John’s, Newfoundland, Canada prospectively collected information on clarification calls to prescribers for new prescriptions over a period of 17 to 19 weeks. Four semistructured interviews were conducted following the data collection period to gain further insight. Results: An estimated 1.33 % of handwritten prescriptions required clarification compared with 0.66 % of EMR-generated prescriptions. Overall, 1.11 % of prescriptions required clarification with the prescriber. While illegibility was eliminated with EMR-generated prescriptions, clarification was still required for missing information (24%) and appropriateness (51%). Key themes, including errors unique to EMR-generated prescriptions, emerged from the qualitative interviews. Conclusions: Advanced e-prescribing functionality will enable secure transmission of prescriptions from prescribers to a patient’s pharmacy of choice through a provincial electronic Drug Information System (DIS)/Pharmacy Network, which will