The number of doctors switching to electronic management of patient records is growing every day. There are number of factors playing into this evolution, ranging from financial incentive programs to improved efficiency to an understanding of the benefits of being able to coordinate all types of medical record keeping into one electronic health record. Most doctors believe that the cost of e-prescription software and other electronic record keeping is well worth the investment to guarantee better patient care.

In the case of electronic prescriptions or e-prescribing, there are two types of benefits. The first are benefits felt by the doctor’s office directly. Efficiency is key here. The doctor reviews the patients electronic record, charts the order for new medication, and that order is directly transmitted to the pharmacy to be filled. There are no intermediate steps of the prescription being written and hand delivered or a nurse needing to call in a prescription manually.

For the patient, the benefits are much more significant. Each year the number of prescription errors grows, resulting in thousands of health problems and even deaths. Eliminating the chance of these errors is what makes e-prescribing so amazing. In addition to reducing the chance that the pharmacist will misread the doctor’s order, the software can run instant checks on the prescription. It can search for harmful interactions with other drugs the patient is taking. It can also compare the dosage of the medication to common standards and the patients condition in order to make sure that the prescription isn’t a dangerously high dosage.