At the higher end of the e-prescribing curve

According to Surescripts, almost 400,000 physicians — about 58% of all office-based doctors — were e-prescribing at the end of 2011. The net effect: About 36% of all prescriptions were sent electronically in 2011.


For the full report, click here.

How does that match up against Accent-Health/Patient Views panelists? Fully 36% of patients told AccentHealth they were given a choice of how they would like to receive their prescription, either electronically or on paper. Overall, 51% said they are receiving their scripts electronically, but when given the choice, almost two-thirds say they would choose e-prescriptions. 


In all, nearly 750 patients participated in the online survey, conducted by AccentHealth from July 19 to Aug. 1.


It’s important to understand that Accent-Health patient-panelists are not your average consumer. They are high users of health care, particularly pharmacy care, filling 63% more prescriptions a year than the average consumer and visiting the pharmacy about 66% more frequently in a typical year than the average. If you want a better understanding of what’s important to pharmacy patients, it probably makes sense to ask the people who use the pharmacy most. 


Patient Views is a new, exclusive consumer insights feature that appears in every edition of DSN magazine, as well as the daily e-newsletter DSN A.M. If you could ask 4,000 patients anything at all, what would it be? Send your questions to [email protected].