Electronic prescribing (e-prescribing) systems that allow doctors to select lower cost or generic medications can save $845,000 per 100,000 patients per year and possibly more system-wide, according to findings from a new study funded by HHS’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

The finding may have important financial implications, the study authors concluded. As e-prescribing systems become more widely available and easier to use, their greater use among doctors is likely. Complete use of e-prescribing system with formulary decision support could reduce prescription drug spending by up to $3.9 million per 100,000 patients per year, according the study’s authors.

The study findings come at a time when many insurers, policymakers, and patients are seeking ways to control fast-rising drug costs. To encourage the use of lower cost or generic drugs, many insurers are now using lists of approved prescription drugs known as formularies. Under these arrangements, patients are often charged the lowest co-payment for generic medications (tier 1), a higher sum for preferred brand-name drugs (tier 2) and the highest amount for non preferred brand-name drugs (tier 3).

However, a major challenge to doctors’ widespread use of tiered systems is the lack of current data on insurers’ prescription drug formularies at the time of prescribing. Providing doctors with current lists of approved medications is challenging because the information changes frequently.

To test the cost-savings potential of an e-prescribing system that includes data on insurers’ formularies, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston compared the change in prescriptions written in three formulary tiers before and after an e-prescribing system was launched. The study examined data collected over 18 months from two major Massachusetts health insurers covering 1.5 million patients.

Doctors using e-prescribing with formulary decision support, which accounted for more than 200,000 filled prescriptions in the study, increased their use of generic prescriptions by 3.3 percent, study authors found. These changes were above and beyond increasing use of generics that was occurring among all doctors and the already high rate of generic drug use in Massachusetts.

Based on average costs for private insurers, study authors estimated that the use of e-prescribing could save $845,000 per 100,000 patients per year and generate even higher savings with greater use. The study, entitled “Impact of Electronic Prescribing with Formulary Decision Support on Medication Use and Cost,” is published in the December 8 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

“These findings show that decision support can improve value for patients,” said AHRQ Director Carolyn M. Clancy, M.D. “These systems have the added and important benefit of improved patient safety by flagging medication errors before they occur.”

Researchers found that the doctors who wrote electronic prescriptions were slightly younger and more likely to be female than those who did not. In addition, internists, pediatricians, and family physicians made up nearly three-fourths of those who used e-prescribing. Of the 17.4 million prescriptions filled over the course of the study, about 212,000 were prescribed electronically. Using e-prescribing systems has the potential to improve drug safety by avoiding drug-drug interactions, drug-disease interactions and other potential drug safety issues.

Lead study author Michael A. Fischer, M.D., of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, noted that even doctors with e-prescribing used it only about 20 percent of the time. “Our results likely represent a conservative estimate of the potential savings-as doctors e-prescribe more frequently, the amount saved could increase dramatically.”

Study author Joel Weissman, Ph.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital, said that the findings revealed that many doctors “want to do the right thing. If they are provided information on choices of effective medicines at the point of service, they are more likely to prescribe the one that will help their patients deal with the high cost of drugs.”

AHRQ’s health information technology (health IT) initiative is part of the Nation’s strategy to use health IT to work in health care. This strategy includes programs across the Department of Health and Human Services such as the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, which, beginning in January 2009, provides up to a 2 percent payment incentive for clinicians enrolled in Medicare to use electronic prescriptions. Since 2004, AHRQ has invested more than $260 million in contracts and grants to more than 150 communities, hospitals, providers, and health care systems in 48 States to develop knowledge about and encourage adoption of health IT practices that improve quality.

Source: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)