E-prescribing enjoying steady growth

More than one in two office-based physicians used electronic prescribing in 2011, up from one in 10 just three years ago, according to the recently released Surescripts 2011 National Progress Report. In 2011, 570 million prescriptions were routed electronically, versus 326 million in 2010, a 75 percent increase. Prescribers using integrated electronic health records had a 53 percent higher utilization level of e-prescribing than prescribers using stand alone e-prescribing systems. What's more, roughly 60 percent of physicians who started e-prescribing in 2008 met the e-prescribing measure for Stage 1 of Meaningful Use; 38 percent of those would meet the e-prescribing measure in the proposed rule for Stage 2. A portion of the report had been leaked in April. Executive summary