The world’s becoming increasingly digital with the advancements in technology. The COVID-19 pandemic also acted as a catalyst in digitalization, especially in the healthcare sector. Terms such as e-pharmacy and e-prescription have been trending more than ever during the pandemic as people have come to understand the importance of e-prescription.
The lockdown imposed by countries to minimize the spread of coronavirus posed as a challenge for patients seeking medical care. Patients are still apprehensive about scheduling in-person appointments with doctors due to the fear of contracting the disease. Moreover, patients suffering from various diseases are more vulnerable to contracting the virus as compared to others.
In unprecedented times like these, e-prescription has gained immense significance as it enables patients to consult doctors online from the comfort of their homes. E-prescription enables doctors to send prescriptions directly to pharmacies which makes the whole process streamlined.
E-prescription is drastically transforming and shaping the future of e-pharmacies. Let’s understand how e-prescription can become vital in the future of the e-pharmacy market.
What is e-prescription and e-pharmacy?
An electronic prescription is a prescription generated by physicians and other medical practitioners using electronic prescribing software. The software enables doctors to write and send electronic prescriptions to pharmacies instead of handing over handwritten prescriptions to patients, calling in prescriptions, or faxing notes.
The e-prescribing software enables physicians to create and refill prescriptions for different patients, view patient history, manage medications, connect to pharmacies or drug dispensing sites, and also integrate with an EMR system. A lot of startups are getting funding for bringing healthcare online. For example- CannaBusiness funding is common these days due to high increase in demand.
E-pharmacy, also known as online pharmacy, operates over the internet where patients can upload prescriptions and order prescribed and OTC medicines. The online pharmacy then verifies the prescriptions and dispatches and delivers medicines to the customers’ doorsteps. It is an extension of e-commerce to curb the collection of medicines by patients.
The future of the e-pharmacy market
In countries such as the US, the adoption rates of e-prescribing are rising tremendously due to mandates for physicians to use e-prescribing software.
This implies that the e-prescription will also become more significant for the e-pharmacy market. With e-prescriptions, the process of receiving prescriptions, reading them correctly, dispensing the right drugs, and re-filling will be streamlined for online pharmacies.
E-prescriptions and e-pharmacies go hand-in-hand where e-prescription helps patients with medicine delivery while saving time and e-pharmacy provides the medicine delivery services. E-prescription addresses many challenges faced by pharmacies due to which it will continue to gain significance in the e-pharmacy market.
Therefore, the amalgamation of e-prescriptions with e-pharmacy under the supervision of registered pharmacists will help in modernizing and advancing the pharmacy system. The healthcare training centers are adopting more E-prescription softwares.