In New York State, March 27 will mark the end of handwritten prescriptions:
Gone will be doctors’ prescription pads and famously bad handwriting. In their place: pointing and clicking, as prescriptions are created electronically and zapped straight to pharmacies in all but the most exceptional circumstances.The change is meant to reduce fraud and misreadings.
Related reading
All OCA handwriting posts (Pinboard)
comments: 5
Hand up for already having my MD mis-click and prescribe the WRONG strength of the medication I was on. It took TWO days to get it straightened out, and if not for an alert pharmacist who wrote ("Change") on the label of the vial, I might not have noticed.
Electronics are just as liable to errors by users as are ink pens.
Argh.
Dear Michael,
stumbled across your blog looking for an old article by George Steiner (and was happy to find lots of Walser quotes as well!).
Lovely blog!
I miss those hand-written prescriptions. My father was a pharmacist in Wales back in the '70s and every Sunday I had the onerous task of sorting them. Of course, looking back now it wasn't onerous but a time of wonder.
Salams,
b.
Thanks for your comments, Elaine and billoo. My wife Elaine (another Elaine) thinks that the prescription pad will become a collector’s item. Let’s see if she’s right.
So far, ophthalmologists are still having to issue paper prescriptions, in our experience. They can't force us to use a specific optical dispenser, and if you shop for a better price (which we do, because the 'best price' is usually north of $400 for eyes like ours) you need to be able to carry the Rx with you from vendor to vendor.
Anything less than a portable Rx creates a nightmare of e-mail (requests, forwards, etc.)
My prescriptions for glasses are always on paper too. I guess there’s no danger of someone altering that kind of prescription. :)
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