Smith Alan D
Department of Management and Marketing, Robert Morris University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
Int J Health Care Qual Assur Inc Leadersh Health Serv. 2006;19(2-3):158-80. doi: 10.1108/09526860610651690.
With the number of prescriptions rising nationally each year, it is surprising that Web-based technology is not fully embraced in the pharmacy industry as an aid to quality-assuring prescribing processes. Traditional prescription handling is done in a manual fashion with physicians hand-writing prescriptions for the patients during an office visit, giving the patient the responsibility of taking the prescription to a pharmacy or mailing the prescription to a mail order company for fulfillment. Electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) has the ability not only to streamline the prescription writing process, but also to reduce the number of errors that may be incurred with hand-written prescriptions. The purpose of this paper is to investigate these phenomena in the U.S.A.
DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: A number of hypotheses were tested using principal-components analysis (PCA) and factor analyses. As a result, a total of 55 fully employed, professional and semi-professional service management and internet users, representing a college-educated and knowledge-based sample derived from the metropolitan section of Pittsburgh, was selected.
The six major constructs generated from the factor loadings in descending order of importance were: profit and risk factors, shipping and handling, saving, customer relationship management (CRM) and ethics, age, and awareness. The dependent variable chosen to be regressed against these major independent factor-based constructs was willingness to purchase prescriptions online. The overall relationship was found to be statistically significant (F = 2.971, p = 0.015) in predicting willingness to use e-prescribing options based on the various independent constructs. However, when testing the various standardized beta coefficients in the linear model, only the factor score-based construct CRM and ethics was found to significantly contribute to predicting the willingness to purchase prescriptions online (t = -3.074, p = 0.003).
RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: Although this study appears to represent the e-prescribing process in the U.S.A., the sample size and region studied are only one slice of the general population. Practical implications - Unfortunately, the adoption of e-prescribing has been difficult to attain owing to numerous barriers throughout the industry. Such acceptance barriers include lack of technology trust, associated system costs, and risk of un-securing patient health and medical information.
ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This article documents that increasing numbers of pharmacies today are building their IT-infrastructures to accept electronic prescriptions and it may soon be the preferred method for physicians to write prescriptions. It is with great anticipation that this technology will also enhance the prescription-writing abilities of prescribing physicians globally, giving them electronic access to patient medical records and resources that will assist them in prescribing the correct drug for the patient.
随着全国每年处方数量的增加，令人惊讶的是，基于网络的技术在制药行业中并未得到充分应用，以辅助确保处方流程的质量。传统的处方处理是手工完成的，医生在门诊时为患者手写处方，让患者负责将处方拿到药房或邮寄给邮购公司以完成配药。电子处方不仅能够简化处方书写流程，还能减少手写处方可能产生的错误数量。本文旨在研究美国的这些现象。
设计/方法/途径：使用主成分分析（PCA）和因子分析对若干假设进行了检验。结果，从匹兹堡市区选取了55名全职、专业和半专业服务管理人员及互联网用户，他们代表了受过大学教育且以知识为基础的样本。
根据因子载荷按重要性降序排列得出的六个主要构念分别为：利润和风险因素、运输与处理、节省、客户关系管理（CRM）与道德、年龄以及认知度。选择与这些基于主要独立因子的构念进行回归分析的因变量是在线购买处方的意愿。在基于各种独立构念预测使用电子处方选项的意愿时，发现总体关系具有统计学意义（F = 2.971，p = 0.015）。然而，在检验线性模型中的各种标准化β系数时，发现只有基于因子得分的构念CRM与道德对预测在线购买处方的意愿有显著贡献（t = -3.074，p = 0.003）。
研究局限性/启示：尽管本研究似乎代表了美国的电子处方流程，但所研究的样本规模和地区只是总体人群的一部分。实际启示——不幸的是，由于整个行业存在众多障碍，电子处方的采用一直难以实现。这些接受障碍包括缺乏对技术的信任、相关系统成本以及患者健康和医疗信息不安全的风险。
原创性/价值：本文记录了如今越来越多的药房正在构建其信息技术基础设施以接受电子处方，并且它可能很快成为医生开具处方的首选方法。人们满怀期待地认为，这项技术还将提高全球开处方医生的处方书写能力，使他们能够电子访问患者病历和资源，这将有助于他们为患者开具正确的药物。
