One benefit of electronic prescribing and electronic medical records: they improve patient compliance in taking their meds.

This is according to a study that evaluated 12,000 patients at Kaiser Permanente Colorado that were prescribed medication electronically for chronic illnesses, such as cholesterol, diabetes, and high blood pressure.  All the offices and pharmacies in the Kaiser system use the same software that integrates the electronic prescription feature with electronic medical records.

In an older research of offices that does not utilize the e-prescription feature, 22 percent of patients did not fill out their prescriptions. Now, with doctors prescribing electronically, failure rate dropped to:

• 7% for blood pressure patients,
• 11% for diabetes patients, and
• 13% for cholesterol patients.

For more information on EMR, please download our white paper “Electronic Medical Records: Choosing the Best System for Your Practice.”

Tags: EMR