Electronic Prescription System: Concepts and Standards

The medication prescription is one of the vital and important processes in each healthcare system and no modern society could live without regulated medicine prescription. Electronic prescribing has emerged as a viable and definitive solution to counter shortcomings of the current paper-based prescribing processes. This study aimed to present an overview of electronic prescription and familiarizes the key real and potential stakeholders with practical concepts and global experiences in the field of e-prescribing. In this review study، PubMed، ISI Web of Science، Scopus، EMBASE databases، Iranian National Library of Medicine (INLM) portal، and Google and Yahoo search engines were searched for relevant English publications concerning the problems of paper-based prescription، and concept، features، levels، benefits، stakeholders and standards of electronic prescription system. Electronic prescribing systems provide the potential to dramatically improve the outcome of prescribing processes، reduce adverse drug events، and save healthcare costs. Strengthening and supporting electronic prescription system requires the collaboration between all the system stakeholders and establishment of infrastructure for underlying healthcare information. Therefore، it is necessary to allocate a high priority to design and implement a national، unified and safe electronic prescription system by health care systems.