Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31646400›Full record

ArticleJournal of medical systems2019

Why do Belgian Community Pharmacists Still Treat Electronic Prescriptions as Paper-Based?

Sven Van Laere, Pieter Cornu, Evy Dreesen, Jan Lenie, Ronald Buyl

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Article in Journal of medical systems, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Sven Van LaereDepartment of Public Health (GEWE), Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Laarbeeklaan 103, 1090, Brussels, Belgium. Sven.Van.Laere@vub.be.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8474-9729
Pieter CornuCentre for Pharmaceutical Research (CePhar), Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Laarbeeklaan 103, 1090, Brussels, Belgium.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4802-0241
Evy DreesenTarification Service Koninklijk Limburgs Apothekers Verbond (KLAV), Ilgatlaan 3, 3500, Hasselt, Belgium.
Jan LenieTarification Service Koninklijk Limburgs Apothekers Verbond (KLAV), Ilgatlaan 3, 3500, Hasselt, Belgium.
Ronald BuylDepartment of Public Health (GEWE), Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Laarbeeklaan 103, 1090, Brussels, Belgium.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6598-9505

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Belgium is in a transition phase from paper-based prescriptions to electronic prescriptions (ePrescriptions) during which both the paper and electronic format are valid. Since patients still get a paper proof of the ePrescription, sometimes pharmacists use the ePrescription as paper-based prescription. When the government demands a complete dematerialization, i.e. no more paper-based prescriptions, this will no longer be possible. Therefore, we questioned the frequency and reasons for treating an ePrescription as paper-based. The logged interactions in the national database were used to identify possible reasons. The tarification service Koninklijk Limburgs Apothekers Verbond (KLAV) provided prescriptions of June 2018. KLAV supports tarification for community pharmacies all over Belgium, thereby providing a representative sample for the Belgian community pharmacies. A two-stage cluster random sampling technique was applied to retrieve a subset of 10,000 prescriptions. In this subset we identified 4961 ePrescriptions (49.61%) of which 226 (4.56%, in total 2.26%) were treated as paper-based. Reasons observed for this incorrect handling are (1) non-compliance of the community pharmacist; (2) errors in software or handling of the community pharmacist; (3) errors at the prescriber side or patient tries to fraud; (4) incorrectly revoking the ePrescription; and (5) errors in software of prescriber. The main reasons for treating ePrescriptions as paper-based are non-compliance of the community pharmacist (n = 124, 54.87%) by ignoring its digital nature, and errors in software or handling of the community pharmacist (n = 85, 37.61%). Future research is necessary to investigate user opinions and to measure the impact of introducing ePrescribing in the daily routine.

Indexed as

Attitude of Health PersonnelBelgiumDrug PrescriptionsElectronic PrescribingFraudGuideline AdherenceHumansMedication ErrorsPharmaciesPharmacistsPractice Guidelines as TopicBelgiumCommunity pharmacy serviceseHealthElectronic prescribingMedical informatics

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.