Which physicians have access to electronic prescribing and which ones end up using it?

Jos A. Pagn, William R. Pratt and Jun Sun

Health Policy, 2009, vol. 89, issue 3, 288-294

Abstract: Objectives This study examines the availability of electronic prescription and the utilization of e-prescribing by physicians in the US.Methods Nationally representative data from the 2004-2005 Community Tracking Study Physician Survey were used to identify which subgroups of physicians have access to e-prescribing technology and which subgroups are using this technology more or less intensively. Exhaustive Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) was employed for statistical data segmentation.Results Results indicate that the rapidly increasing adoption of electronic prescription is diminished by relatively low physician utilization. E-prescription utilization was segmented among practice size and type. There were also differences in e-prescription use by age, gender, and ethnicity/race in some subgroups. Actual use of e-prescription was very low for female physicians in surgical specialties, psychiatry, and obstetrics/gynecology, and for Hispanic physicians in pediatrics, internal medicine, and family/general practice in solo/two physician practices, medical schools, and hospitals.Conclusions Insights from segmentation analyses could be used to identify adoption barriers and to develop targeted interventions to accelerate the implementation of e-prescription systems in physician practices.

Keywords: Electronic; prescribing; Information; technology; Medication; errors (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:89:y:2009:i:3:p:288-294

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