National Medication council defines medication errors as any preventable event, that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer (1).
Medication Errors are common in general practice and in hospitals. Two very common types of medication errors are Prescribing Errors and Erroneous Medical Decisions. Any step in prescribing process can generate errors, for example, a fault in dose selection, omitted transcription, and illegible handwriting.

PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH HANDWRITTEN PRESCRIPTIONS
There are various problems associated with hand written prescriptions, few of them are listed below:

– Illegible Handwriting
– Misinterpretations
– Increase chances of dispensing errors E.g. LASA (Look Alike Sound               Alike)  drugs
– Poor maintenance
– Easy to misplace

To beat such problems E-Prescription is growing rapidly, not just because technology has improved, but because of substantial benefits for the patients and physicians.

ADVANTAGES OF ICHR’s SMART PRESCRIPTION

Prevent Errors : Smart Prescription eliminates handwriting errors and provides an aesthetic view of prescriptions.

Digitization : Parents can view the prescribed prescription on the mobile application, help in proper documentation, prevents conditions like damage of paper, lost and theft.

Easy and Quick : Auto-populated fields and single click prevent writing long prescriptions, thus saves the time of the physicians as well as of the patients.

Easy Identification of Drugs : Many drugs are available in different forms like Syrup, Tablet, and Capsule. There is proper segregation of drugs based on concentration, quantity etc. prevent dispensing errors.

Remote Monitoring : It increases the doctor-patient interaction. Physician can prescribe drugs from any part of the world.

Disease Predictions : Based on data available through “Smart Prescription” we can predict future complications and send notifications to physicians beforehand.

Automated Clinical Decisions Support : By quick view of growth charts based on length, weight, height, and head circumference doctors can modify dosage and prescribe other supplements accordingly.

Instant Notifications : The physicians will have full visibility into all of the patients documented allergies, previously prescribed drugs, and potential negative reactions.
Protecting child’s health and providing proper care is most important for parents and doctors. Maintaining baby’s record from infancy to adolescence is very crucial and hectic task.

To solve this problem, iCHR provides paperless platform integrating parents, doctors and hospitals. It provides quick view of automated vaccination records, schedule and growth monitoring data, and prescriptions on mobile application.
Smart prescription automates all the steps of prescription writing starting from chief complaints, clinical examination, investigation and final diagnosis in simple, user friendly and time efficient manner.

QUICK VIEW OF “SMART PRESCRIPTION”

Chief Complaint: One click accessibility to the chief complaints with auto-populated list of complaints based on old records.
“Quick search” by just clicking the first alphabet of the condition.
Easy to “add” new conditions.
Easy to incorporate duration and severity of the condition by just “one click”.

Clinical Examination and Diagnosis : Based on “chief complaint”, iCHR’s Smart Prescription auto-populate the associated examinations and provisional diagnosis.

Medication and Drug Allergy : Based on previously prescribed drugs, it auto-populates medication options for the physicians.

On the same screen we provide timings, duration, frequency, and quantity to be clicked by the physicians as per the guidelines.

Investigation and Instructions : Auto – population of investigations and instructions based on diagnosis.

Save and Preview : One click on the button saves the prescription in proper sequence and easy to read format. Physicians can either give the print of the prescription to the patients or parents can access the same on their app.

Advances in technology and scientific understanding of disease process are presenting new opportunities to improve health through individualized approach referred to as personalized medicines (2).
A key cornerstone to this potential approach is the knowledge by effective use of electronic medical records. E-prescription is very important part of electronic clinical decision support system. Thus, in coming years electronic health records will create new opportunities for scientists and clinicians to improve quality and effectiveness of health care industry (2,3)

References:
1. R. (2015, January 30). About Medication Errors. Retrieved April 05, 2017, from http://www.nccmerp.org/about-medication-errors
2. Downing, G. J., Boyle, S. N., Brinner, K. M., & Osheroff, J. A. (2009, October 08). Information management to enable personalized medicine: stakeholder roles in building clinical decision support. Retrieved April 05, 2017, from Link
3. Fincham, J. E. (2008). E-Prescribing: A Move Toward Appropriate Medication Use. Retrieved April 05, 2017, from Link