The effort to eliminate handwritten prescriptions by moving to computerized systems as a way to save money and lives is gaining momentum, say supporters of electronic prescribing initiatives.

So-called e-prescribing won a boost this summer in Minnesota when Gov. Tim Pawlenty's administration mandated that doctors who contract with the state employees' health plan enter and submit their prescriptions electronically to pharmacies. Physicians with state employees as patients must use e-prescribing by 2011 under the state-backed initiative.

E-prescribing is designed to cut the risk of medication errors because computerized software can alert doctors to possibly dangerous drug interactions or side effects. What's more, electronic submissions reduce the risk of a misread handwritten prescription.

E-prescribing could also save money because doctors would be more attuned to the menu of cheaper generic drugs that would pop up on computerized screens before them when they are ordering prescriptions.

The Institute of Medicine, part of the Washington-based National Academy of Sciences, has urged physicians to move to e-prescribing to reduce what the institute says are 1.5 million preventable medication errors each year. Such errors come from poorly written or communicated prescriptions and harmful drug interactions or doctors or pharmacies not having electronically available histories of patients' medications or other reasons.

"Gov. Pawlenty's administration is the first to make sure that more doctors take advantage of the safety and savings benefits of e-prescribing," said Mark Merritt, president and chief executive of the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, a Washington-based lobby that represents the pharmacy benefit management industry.

Pharmacy benefit companies are perhaps the biggest supporters of e-prescribing in health care. They include Medco Health Solutions Inc., CVS Caremark Corp. and Express Scripts Inc. In addition, companies that make e-prescribing software, such as Chicago-based Allscripts Inc., are also backing such initiatives by giving away software to doctors.

The latest push by the pharmacy benefit industry is to have the Medicare health insurance program for the elderly, the nation's biggest health plan, require participating doctors to use e-prescribing. Such a move, supporters say, not only would reduce prescription errors but also could potentially save billions of dollars.

However, much work needs to be done because, by most estimates, fewer than 1 in 10 of the nation's doctors prescribe electronically.

Some doctors are balking at changing. They say it would cost them money, particularly in rural areas where reimbursement for services can be lower than in other parts of the country. Another concern is that they might not have large enough volumes of patients to cover their costs of installing e-prescribing software.

But Merritt and supporters say they are not in favor of "unfunded mandates" and have been pushing for increases in Medicare reimbursement as a way to help doctors pay for the costs of e-prescribing.


Hear Bruce Japsen on WBBM-AM 780 at 6:21 p.m. and 10:22 p.m. Mondays and 11:20 a.m. Saturdays.