title: E-prescribing adoption and use increased substantially following the start of a federal incentive program.
abstract: E-prescribing, or the electronic generation of a prescription and its routing to a pharmacy, is generally believed to improve health care quality and reduce costs. However, physicians were slow to embrace this technology until 2008, when Congress authorized e-prescribing incentives as part of the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act. Using e-prescribing data from Surescripts, we determined that as of December 2010, close to 40 percent of active e-prescribers had adopted the technology in response to the federal incentive program. The data also suggest that among providers who were already e-prescribing, the federal incentive program was associated with a 9-11 percent increase in the use of e-prescribing-equivalent to an additional 6.8-8.2 e-prescriptions per provider per month. We believe that financial incentives can drive providers' adoption and use of health information technology such as e-prescribing, and that health information networks can be a powerful tool in tracking incentives' progress.
authors.affiliation: Surescripts, Arlington, VA, USA. sjoseph@surescripts.com
authors.forename: Seth B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Joseph
authors.forename: Max J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Sow
authors.forename: Michael F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Furukawa
authors.forename: Steven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Posnack
authors.forename: Jodi G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Daniel
mesh_terms: D003362:Cost-Benefit Analysis / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D055695:Electronic Prescribing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D006278:Medicare / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010816:Physician Incentive Plans / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D058996:Quality Improvement / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012052:Reimbursement, Incentive / Q000191:economics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D014481:United States
keywords: Health Reform; Information Technology; Organization And Delivery Of Care; Pharmaceuticals; Physician Payment