As the use of e-prescribing expands, it will begin to encompass more than just writing an initial prescription to include many interactions between healthcare providers, according to Doug Hillblom, PharmD, president at Arena Healthcare, LLC.

Transcript (slightly modified)

What future changes in e-prescribing do you expect to see?

I expect to see more adoption. I expect to see more uses. I think that you’re going to be seeing potentially… Well, a change that we did see was the electronic prescribing of controlled substances. It started off initially that that was not allowed, now it is allowed and it’s become really a standard, so I think you’re going to see continued evolution. As both physicians, pharmacies, and the healthcare system change, you’re going to see continued evolution.

You’re going to see more and more work done: can we add things into the process? I think you’re going to see, when we talk about prescribing in general, we think about refills, we think about fill status, we think about prior authorization, those are all components of what people in the standards organization think about e-prescribing. E-prescribing is not just initiating a prescription. It’s a whole host of data interchange or transactions or interactions between physicians, pharmacies, payers, et cetera.