Peer Perspectives

Some e-prescribing software is designed specifically for sending and receiving prescription information. These systems are commonly referred to as “standalone” e-prescribing applications and typically involve using a wireless handheld device for prescribers and a desktop version for staff.

Alternatively, some practices immediately adopt an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system, that allow you to maintain comprehensive electronic health records for your patients (clinical documentation, labs, referrals, medication history, etc.) and eliminate paper charts. EMRs enhance workflow and access to information to make the practice of medicine more efficient for the physician and the staff. Decision support and automated reminders help the practice deliver safer and higher quality care to their patients. E-prescribing is one of many functions found within an EMR and some electronic medical record systems allow you to get started with e-prescribing and adopt additional functionality as you go.

Read on to learn how physicians that e-prescribe, through the use of standalone e-prescribing software or electronic medical records, are benefiting from an electronic prescribing connection to their local pharmacies:


EMR Users

The following Peer Perspectives share the experiences of practices that have implemented EMR solutions that have been certified to connect to the Pharmacy Health Information Exchange™. Read on to learn more:

Medium - Large Group Practices (11+ prescribers)

The following Peer Perspectives share the experiences of practices with more than 11 prescribers that have implemented e-prescribing solutions that have been certified to connect to the Pharmacy Health Information Exchange™. Read on to learn more:

Nurse Practitioner and Physician Assistant Peer Perspectives

The following practices have implemented electronic prescribing solutions that have been certified to connect to the Pharmacy Health Information Exchange™. Read on to learn more about their experiences from a non-physician perspective:



Gul Chablani, M.D., in practice for 18 years (Rockville, MD)

  • Safe-Rx Award honoree
  • Specialty: Internal medicine and pediatrics: 2 physicians, 5 full-time and 1 part-time clerical staff members
  • Technology Provider & Solution: InstantDx, OnCallData
  • Avg. Daily Rx Volume: 25-30 New Rx/doctor, 25-30 Refills/doctor
  • Rx Time Savings: 3-4 hours/day to fulfill Rx refill requests reduced to 1 hour/day. Clarification requests from pharmacies reduced from 6-10/day to nearly zero.
  • Quote: (Integrating electronic prescribing) was so easy it required essentially no formal training. It took only minutes to learn.
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Lorenver Po, M.D., in practice for 10 years, and Kenneth Aquilino, M.D., in practice for 10 years (Holyoke, MA)

  • Safe-Rx Award honoree
  • Specialty: Internal Medicine
  • Technology Provider & Solution: Zix PocketScript
  • Avg. Daily Rx Volume: 50-100 New Rx/prescriber, 50-100 Refills/prescriber
  • Rx Time Savings: Fulfillment of refill requests reduced from 15 minutes to less than 1 minute per.
  • Quote: E-prescribing efficiencies allow our practice to see an additional 3-5 patients each day, without having to work longer hours.
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Robert Resnik , M.D., in practice 18 years (Cary, NC)

  • Safe-Rx Award honoree
  • Specialty: Internal medicine
  • Practice Size: 2 e-prescribers, 6 total staff in practice
  • Technology Provider & Solution: DrFirst Rcopia
  • Rx Volume: 200 new Rx/week; 450-500 refill authorizations per week
  • Rx Time Savings: Time spent managing refill requests reduced from 5-6 hours/day to 1 hour/day.
  • Quote: In our last year alone, through a combination of reduced overhead costs and increased revenue (from being able to see more patients), we saved roughly $40,000, and we’re a medium-sized practice. For larger practices, the economic impact will be much more dramatic.
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David Gorelick, M.D., in practice for 14 years, (Newport, RI)

  • Safe-Rx Award honoree
  • Specialty: Internal Medicine
  • Practice Size: 40 total employees: 13 full-time prescribers, 27 support staff, (two separate multi-specialty office sites)
  • Technology Provider & Solution: eClinicalWorks, eClinical Works EMR
  • Avg. Daily Rx Volume:30-40 New Rx/prescriber, 20 refills/prescriber
  • Rx Time Savings: Roughly 10 hours each week, by having reduced the prescription-related phone and fax burden on the staff
  • Quote: The doctors and staff use the EMR and electronic prescribing nearly 100% of the time… it was well worth the investment
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Jeffrey Kleiman , M.D. in practice 25 years (Brockton, MA)

  • Safe-Rx Award honoree
  • Specialty: Family practice
  • Practice Size: 1 e-prescriber, 3 total staff in practice
  • Technology Provider & Solution: RxNT
  • Rx Volume: 500 new Rx/week; 500 refill authorizations/week
  • Rx Time Savings: Saving more than an hour a day on refill requests
  • Quote: The electronic prescribing system offers many checks and balances — ranging from drop-down menus that verify spelling, dosage and drug formats, to automatic alerts for drug-drug and drug-allergy issues — to mitigate the majority of possible errors.
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Peter Schock , M.D., Karen Carlson, FNP (Bellevue, WA)

  • Safe-Rx Award honoree
  • Specialty: Family practice
  • Practice Size: 5 e-prescribers, 20 total staff in practice
  • Technology Provider & Solution: ChartConnect electronic medical record (EMR)
  • Rx Volume: 200-300 new Rx/week; 500 refill authorizations/week
  • Rx Time Savings: Eliminated 2 hours a day previously spent managing charges and paper prescriptions.
  • Quote: Implementing an EMR system with e-prescribing capabilities was the smartest thing we ever did in terms of improving overall practice efficiency, medication safety and quality of care, and we’ve been saving a considerable amount of money, too.
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Rebecca Andrews, M.D ., in practice for 2 years (New Britain, CT)

  • Safe-Rx Award honoree
  • Specialty: Internal medicine, family practice, pediatrics
  • Practice Size: 6 e-prescribers, 20 total staff in practice
  • Technology Provider & Solution: eClinicalWorks EMR
  • Rx Volume: 125-150 new Rx/week; 100 refill authorizations/week
  • Rx Time Savings: Eliminated 2 hours a day previously spent managing charges and paper prescriptions.
  • Quote: Without a doubt, electronic prescribing is the best part of our EMR system.
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Kenneth Adler, M.D ., in practice for 22 years (Tucson, AZ)

  • Safe-Rx Award honoree
  • Specialty: Family Medicine
  • Practice Size: 4 e-prescribers, 12 total staff in practice
  • Technology Provider & Solution: Allscripts Touchworks EMR
  • Rx Volume: 200–250 new Rx and refill requests/week per physician
  • Rx Time Savings: Eliminated 2 hours a day previously spent managing charges and paper prescriptions.
  • Quote: Anytime you can get rid of a manual process, you eliminate the possibility for human transcription errors — wrong name, wrong medication, wrong dosage, wrong number of refills. All these things can and do happen when you rely on the old-fashioned phone- and fax-based prescribing process.
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Edward Sobel, M.D., in practice for 32 years, and David Krasner, M.D., in practice for 17 years, (Wilmington, DE)

  • Safe-Rx Award honoree (Dr. Sobel)
  • Specialty: Family Practice
  • Practice Size: 5 physicians, 1 nurse-practitioner, 25 staff
  • Technology Provider & Solution: DrFirst Rcopia
  • Avg. Daily Rx Volume: 30-40 New Rx/doctor, 25 Refills/doctor
  • Rx Time Savings: Fewer chart pulls and re-filing, fewer steps involved in the prescription review and submission process. System allows doctors to write and submit four prescriptions in under 30 seconds
  • Quote: We're 100% electronic, and we love it. I just can't see a reason for continuing on paper… it just doesn't make sense any more.
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Marc Mayer, M.D., in practice for 22 years (Iselin, NJ)

  • Practice Size: 15 providers, 2 nurses, 9 clinical staff
  • Technology Provider and Solution: Zix PocketScript
  • Avg. Daily Rx Volume: 70 New Rx/doctor. 150-200 refill requests/doctor
  • Rx Time Savings: Dramatic drop in the number of call backs from pharmacies seeking to clarify illegible or confusing prescription information. Significantly improved records management.
  • Quote: It couldn't be any easier.
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Elisa Montross-Lopez, M.D., in practice for 10 years (Lewes, DE)

  • Practice Size: 3 physicians, 3 nurses
  • Technology Provider and Solution: DrFirst Rcopia
  • Avg. Daily Rx Volume: 100 New Rx/doctor, 40 refill requests/doctor
  • Rx Time Savings: Clarification requests from pharmacies reduced from10/day to virtually zero. Time spent on-hold and managing fax requests from pharmacies for prescription refills significantly reduced.
  • Quote: We're no longer at the whim of numerous phone interruptions throughout the course of the day.
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Margaret Ragan, F.N.P., in practice for 12 years (Bealeton, VA)

  • Practice Size: 4 prescribers
  • Technology Provider and Solution: DrFirst Rcopia
  • Avg. Daily Rx Volume: 20 New Rx/doctor, 24-30 refill requests/doctor
  • Rx Time Savings: Turnaround time for prescription refill requests reduced from 48-72 hours to same day response. 15-20 phone messages a day reduced to just 1 or 2.
  • Quote: The most refreshing part of my day is to go to my office ... and not have a mountain of charges waiting for me.
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Richard King, D.O., in practice for 9 years, (Las Vegas, NV)

  • Practice Size: 12 adult medicine providers, 2 pediatric providers
  • Technology Provider and Solution: Allscripts Touchworks EMR
  • Avg. Daily Rx Volume: 40-60 New Rx/doctor, 50-60 refill requests/doctor
  • Rx Time Savings: Pharmacy connectivity significantly reduced staff time spent managing 1000+ requests for prescription refills per day and strengthened relationship with pharmacist counterparts.
  • Quote: Once you're comfortable with it, you'll never go back to handwritten prescriptions again.
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Alan Warrington , M.D., in practice 18 years (Wilmington, DE)

  • Safe-Rx Award honoree
  • Specialty: Family Practice
  • Practice Size: 1 e-prescriber, 9 total staff in practice
  • Technology Provider & Solution: DrFirst Rcopia
  • Rx Volume: 75 new Rx/week; 20-40 refill authorizations per week
  • Quote: Before we implemented our e-prescribing system, it was maddening how much time we wasted trying to get through all of the menu-driven prompts at the pharmacy, faxing and re-faxing every time we got a busy signal, and being kept on hold. Today, most of these manual processes have been eliminated, thanks to the computer-to-computer communication that the system provides.
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Connecticut Multispecialty Group (Hartford, CT)

  • Practice Size: 92 prescribers 275 staff at 14 locations
  • Technology Provider & Solution: Allscripts Touchworks EMR
  • Quote: It's really unbelievable how much time it's saving you - you don't really realize it until you start thinking about how many hours you used to sit there with a pen in your hand, grinding through the process every day. Now I can just highlight seven or ten prescriptions on the patient's medication list, click and send, and I can do it while I'm still sitting there talking to my patient. It leaves much more time to focus on what's really important.
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Capital Health Plan (Tallahassee, FL)

  • Practice Size: 42 total; 29 e-prescribing (optometrists and Physician Assistants are not currently using the system)
  • Specialty: Family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, cardiology, radiology urgent care and optometry
  • Technology Provider & Solution: NextGen EMR
  • Rx Volume: 3,544 new prescriptions weekly; 1,365 refill requests weekly with more than half managed electronically
  • Quote: We are saving a lot of time — which is valuable currency for busy physicians and staff members.
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Greg Mercurio, M.D., in practice 17 years (New Smyrna Beach, FL)

  • Specialty: Internal medicine
  • Practice Size: 2 e-prescribers and 8 staff in practice
  • Technology Provider & Solution: RxNT
  • Rx Volume: 50 new Rx and 80 refill authorizations per day
  • Rx Time Savings: The number of phone calls and faxes from pharmacies for refill requests has been reduced by 80 percent.
  • Quote: There’s nothing more compelling than seeing how easy it is to use and what you can accomplish. With just a few clicks, the fully populated prescription is transmitted electronically to the patient’s pharmacy of choice. Seeing it really blows you away.
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