DrFirst released a report providing an overview of the state of electronic prescribing of controlled substances.
Here are five insights:
1. More than 15 million people in the United States abuse prescription drugs regularly and 52 million Americans over the age of 12 have used prescription drugs non-medically in their lifetime. Each day, 44 people in the United States die due to an overdose of a prescription painkiller.
2. Electronic prescribing of controlled substances may help curb this abuse by increasing prescription security, improving patient safety and reducing the practice of "doctor shopping" to fill unnecessary prescriptions.
3. The report, "The Evolving EPCS Landscape 2016: A Prescription for Stopping Opioid Abuse" reveals that a vast majority of U.S. pharmacies are EPCS-enabled. The report notes that five states — Massachusetts, Michigan, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and New York — now report that more than 90 percent of their pharmacies are EPCS-enabled.
4. The prescriber community is still far behind their pharmacy counterparts. On average, only 5.8 percent of all U.S. practitioners are currently EPCS-enabled.
5. DrFirst is a company that pioneers electronic prescribing, secure text messaging and other healthcare SaaS solutions.
