Study: Clinicians bypass most alerts from e-prescribing systems

One of the key benefits touted by advocates of e-prescribing is its ability to help physicians avoid harmful drug interactions and be aware of allergies. However, a new study suggests that this benefit is rarely being realized, as physicians tend not to make use of the warnings the system provides.

According to the study, which appears in the Archive of Internal Medicine, clinicians bypassed more than 90 percent of drug interactions alerts and 77 percent of the drug allergy alerts sent by e-prescribing systems.

To conduct the study, researchers looked at electronic prescriptions and related med safety alerts produced by 2,872 clinicians at community-based outpatient practices in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Collectively, the clinicians submitted 3.5 million e-prescriptions between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30, 2006.

The researchers found that on 15 prescriptions, 6.6 percent triggered an alert for a potential interaction or allergy.

To learn more about the study:
- read this iHealthBeat piece

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