Introduction
In partnership with our e-prescribing vendor Surescripts, NextGen Healthcare is working to improve the quality of the electronic prescription messages being sent from the EHR application. Here are some things to consider when creating a new electronic prescription.
SIG
Consider the following guidelines when providing prescription instructions to the patient:
- Use a SIG provided by First Databank when possible.
- When adding custom instructions for the patient, do this only in the SIG editor’s “Additional Text” field.
- Refrain from adding additional patient directions in notes or comments fields.
- When customizing a SIG, use concise language and avoid using unnecessary characters.
- Avoid using abbreviations or truncating words.
- Use descriptive instructions instead of “Latin” SIGs.
Non-Clinical Notes to Pharmacy
When using the Non-Clinical Notes to Pharmacy (formerly “Comments”) field for a prescription, only provide information that is important for the pharmacist. Do not include information that is for the patient. Patient instructions should be added to the SIG field.
Additionally, the Notes to Pharmacy field should only be used to give the pharmacist additional information that can’t be provided by other prescription fields. For example, if you want the prescription to be dispensed “as written” use the Dispense as Written check box instead of adding a note to the pharmacist.
Units Field
The Units field describes what is represented by the Quantity value. For example, if you are prescribing “30 tablets”, the Quantity value will be 30 and the Units value will be “Tablet”. When prescribing a medication, use a non-generic value for the “Units” field. The NextGen® Ambulatory EHR will provide a meaningful Units value by default for most medications. If EHR cannot find a default Units value, the application will set the Units to “Unspecified”. When this happens, you can improve the quality of your prescription by changing the Units value to something more meaningful.
Date Written
When e-prescribing a medication, you should only send the prescription to the pharmacy within 48 hours of the prescription’s Start Date.
Duplicate Content Messages
Each prescription that you send to the pharmacy for a patient should be unique. You should not send the same prescription details more than once. If you require more than one unit of a particular medication, use the Quantity field to adjust the prescription accordingly.