Health Affairs, 10.1377/hlthaff.w4.305
Copyright © 2004 by Project HOPE
Recommendations For Comparing Electronic Prescribing Systems: Results Of An Expert Consensus Process
Douglas S. Bell 1*,
Richard S. Marken 2,
Robin C. Meili 3,
C. Jason Wang 4,
Mayde Rosen 5,
Robert H. Brook 6,
RAND Electronic Prescribing Expert Advisory Panel 7
1 Douglas Bell is an associate natural scientist at RAND in Santa Monica, California, an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles; and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Generalist Physician Faculty Scholar.
2 Richard Marken is a senior behavioral scientist at RAND.
3 Robin Meili is a senior management systems analyst at RAND.
4 Jason Wang is a doctoral fellow in the Pardee RAND Graduate School.
5 Mayde Rosen is an associate natural scientist at RAND.
6 Robert Brook, vice president, directs the RAND Health Program.
7 Names and affiliations of the Expert Panel members are listed in the paper’s acknowledgment.
*Corresponding author.
Commercially available electronic prescribing systems may differ in their effects on patients health outcomes and on patients ability to manage costs. An expert panel convened to recommend specific features that would enable electronic prescribing systems to advance these goals. The panel authored sixty recommendations and rated each using a modified Delphi process. Ratings identified fifty-two recommendations as clearly positive for patient safety and health outcomes and forty-three recommendations as achievable in the average clinicians office within three years. Overall, these recommendations offer a synthesis of evidence and expert opinion that can help guide the development of electronic prescribing policy.
Key Words:
Business Of Health, Consumer Issues, Internet And Health, Pharmaceuticals, Quality Of Care, Research And Technology, Health Spending