. 2004 Jan-Feb;11(1):60–70. doi: 10.1197/jamia.M1374

Table 4.

Potential Effects of Individual Electronic Prescribing Functional Capabilities

Step	Functional Capability	Potential Effects of Capability^*
Prescribe	1. Patient selection or identification^†	Wrong-patient errors (+ or −), clinician labor (+ or −)
	2. Diagnosis selection and diagnosis-based reminders^†	Omission and drug-choice errors (likely −),⁴⁵^,⁴⁹ accuracy of diagnosis data (+ or −), clinician labor (likely + or neutral)⁴⁵
	3. Medication selection menus^†	Wrong-dose and wrong-drug errors (+ or −),⁴⁴^,⁵¹ clinician labor (+ or −)⁵⁴^,⁵⁵^,⁵⁶
	4. Safety alerts, based on:^†	Drug-choice errors, including allergies (+ or −),⁴¹^,⁴⁴^,⁵⁸ clinician labor (+ or −)
	• allergies
	• drug–drug interactions
	• drug–disease interactions
	• drug–lab (renal, hepatic function)
	• body size, age (child, elder, …)
	5. Formulary alerts^†	Formulary adherence (likely +),⁵¹ clinician labor (likely −), health care costs (+ or −)
	6. Dosage calculation	Dosage errors (likely −),⁶⁰^,⁶¹ clinician labor (+ or −)
Transmit	7. Data transmission to inpatient, retail, and/or mail-order pharmacy^†	Transcribing errors (likely −), clinician labor (+ or −)
Dispense	8. Physician in-office dispensing^†	Drug-choice errors (+ or −), clinician labor (+ or −)
Administer	9. Patient education materials, coordination of education activities	Outpatient adherence (+ or −), pharmacist, clinician, & staff labor (+ or −)
	10. Medication administration aids	Outpatient adherence (likely +)
	11. Refill and renewal reminders	Outpatient adherence (likely +)
Monitor	12. Corollary orders (e.g., for monitoring tests)	Monitoring errors (likely −)⁶⁴
	13. Automated patient questionnaires to detect adverse effects; other structured follow-up communication	Patient failures to report significant adverse effects (likely −), patient adherence (likely +), clinician & staff labor (+ or −)
	14. Alerts for patients' failure to refill	Patient adherence (likely +), clinician & staff labor (+ or −)

Explanations of potential effects appear in the article text. Citation numbers indicate specific supporting evidence.

^†

Functional capability identified in an existing commercial e-prescribing product.