Why should the National Programme for IT include the electronic
transmission of prescriptions?
The benefits outweigh the costs of change argues Martin Strange,
who describes what ETP has to offer each user group.
keywords: prescriptions’
transfer, general practice, community pharmacy, prescription pricing,
organisational change.
abstract
The electronic transfer of prescriptions (ETP) is a main pillar of
the current National Programme for NHS IT. This paper draws on the
author’s direct experience of two separate ETP pilots and, indirectly,
of the other two recent national pilots, to highlight not only the
possible gains but also the adjustments each of the stakeholders will
need to cope with in the anticipated implementation of ETP.
Br J Healthcare Comput Info Manage 2004; 21(2): 30–2.
