Nowadays, electronic prescription apps, also known as online prescription services, are becoming more well-known since they can be used as an interactive online way to connect patients to different healthcare professionals.
Telemedicine has long been in high demand. The shift from paper-based document management to an electronic version is never more urgent than in the current worldwide epidemic of COVID-19.
Technology is designed to limit interactions between physicians and patients to decrease the number of infected patients. An excellent opportunity to achieve this goal is through ePrescription app development. This solution lets patients obtain prescriptions and doctor’s advice rapidly and safely.
In this article, we will walk you through the most important things you should be aware of regarding e-prescription app development. We will discuss the most important market players and features you must have, potential development issues, and the monetization model. So, let’s start.
Eprescription Ecosystem – How ePrescription App works
Healthcare professionals use electronic prescriptions to create, send, and maintain prescriptions to patients electronically. The development of automated e-prescription software permits doctors to choose the medications they prescribe, specify dosages, and transmit prescriptions directly to pharmacies.
Pharmacists can receive prescriptions electronically, which reduces the chance of errors in handwriting errors and reduces the delivery process.
With ePrescription app development, patients can take their medication without a physical prescription. The custom e-prescription system is often integrated into electronic health records (EHRs), enhancing communication between healthcare professionals, improving the overall quality of patient care, and increasing prescription efficiency and accuracy.
Patients
Electronic prescribing improves patient safety by minimizing medication errors due to illegible handwriting. With features like automatic refill reminders and patient information, it ensures better adherence. Combined with pharmacy app development, it enhances convenience, allowing patients to access medications quickly and reduce pharmacy wait times.
Doctors
The ePrescription app streamlines the prescribing process, helping doctors save time by eliminating manual documentation. It also improves accuracy by making it easier to avoid errors caused by unreadable handwriting or miscommunication.
They can also provide quick access to patients’ histories and medical information, which can help improve treatments. In addition, real-time integration with pharmacies allows for efficient prescription fulfillment, leading to better patient results and more efficient workflows for healthcare professionals.
Pharmacists
Pharmacists can benefit from electronic prescribing by receiving accurate and legible prescriptions electronically. This reduces the chance of mistakes while also increasing patient safety. App development for custom e-prescriptions can also improve pharmacies’ workflow, allowing pharmacists to focus more on patient counseling and medication management.
Medical Consultants
Medical consultants are also able to capitalize on app specifically designed with the needs of the client in mind, ensuring saved, accessible, and retrievable assessment reports can be done through a secure environment.
This technology enhances workflows, augments accuracy, secures sensitive data while providing convenient, fast, accessible information whenever it is required.
Physician
Doctors, nurse practitioners, and other prescribers benefit from e-prescribing because it streamlines prescription procedures, cuts down on the paperwork involved, and increases workflow efficiency. The app used for e-prescribing often includes options like drug interaction tests and information about formularies, which aids doctors in making educated decisions regarding prescriptions.
ePrescription and Telemedicine Stats and Facts
Patients, healthcare providers, and pharmacies have all experienced the ease and speed of using electronic prescriptions. Public Health Emergency waivers and flexibility in telemedicine gave an edge to e-prescriptions and expanded possibilities for custom solutions. The market prospects for electronic prescription methods and products are positive:
- The worldwide e-prescription software market, valued at $1.2 billion in the year 2020, is expected to reach $3.3 billion by 2025.
- The market for electronic prescriptions worldwide will be $2.89 billion in 2022 and will likely experience an increase of 26.8% to $19.28 billion by 2030. View Research
- The growth rate for medical professionals who have reported telemedicine as an ability doubled during the pandemic and grew 38% from 2019 to 2020.
- In 2022, 2.3 billion prescriptions were electronically fulfilled within the US.
- About 40% of respondents say that they’ll continue using telehealth from now into the future, a jump from 11% who used it before COVID-19.
Why Healthcare Companies Investing in Eprescription App Development
ePrescription app development services, along with telemedicine app development, provide an array of options for addressing the most challenging issues in the medical sector. The healthcare industry has always focused on enhancing service quality, and the latest telemedicine technologies can significantly assist these providers.
Improved Efficiency and Convenience
Because doctors can access health-related information as well as the medication history of patients, the medical adequacy of treatment increases. As Hippocrates said: “First, do no harm.” When a doctor prescribes e-prescriptions, they determine which medication to suggest based on specifics about each individual and the patient’s prior treatment. This means that the services offered by healthcare can be highly efficient and precise.
Prescription Process Automation
Conventional prescriptions are based on a single sheet of historical record on paper and require an individual prescription of controlled substances, which can only be sent to pharmacies that sell mail-order drugs or at stores. This means that the manual procedure is exhausting and sluggish.
E-prescription apps make it easy to deliver lists of medicines directly to pharmacies that mail orders. Using this method, this workflow can be speeded up, improved, and even automated, with a significant advantage.
Eliminate Handwriting Flaws
The handwriting on the prescription needs to be readable. This is a central issue that can be solved through electronic prescribing. It’s an issue frequently where clients purchase similarly-spelled medicine because they can’t comprehend the words on the prescription. The result is the loss of both health and financial funds.
Enhanced Patient Engagement
Each side, including doctors and patients, can track when medications are taken. The app permits refills on prescriptions during treatment. Additionally, the e-prescription program, as part of patient engagement solutions, sends reminders to ensure patients take their medications on time and follow the prescribed schedule.
Enhanced Patientcare and Safety
Healthcare firms invest in ePrescription apps to improve patient safety and care. The apps reduce prescription errors through automation and ensure accurate and clear communication between pharmacists and physicians.
They give immediate access to medication histories, which allows for more informed choices. Through features such as dose tracking, allergy alerts, and dosage tracking, these apps improve patient safety while encouraging efficiency and personalized healthcare distribution.
Simplify Medication History Storage
The primary issue with conventional prescribing is that the prescription may get damaged and lost. Furthermore, it’s not practical to keep all of the documents that contain the names of medications over a period of time. The development of app for prescriptions online helps solve this problem and also keeps the entire history of prescription medications.
Benefits of Using the ePrescription Mobile App for Patients
Poor drug management, as well as prescription errors, are some significant causes of unneeded hospitalizations as well as other incidents involving health. This is mainly because medicine management is heavily dependent on the manual process.
In particular, delays caused by paperwork or misunderstandings resulting from poor writing, inaccessibility to the patient’s history, and lost documents, for example, can cause gaps in the prescribing process and generally require much back-and-forth to correct. E-prescription apps and software remove the manual component of the prescription process, eliminate most of it, and make it more secure and efficient.
The main advantages of ePrescription mobile app development are:
Improved Health Outcomes
E-prescription applications can enhance the quality of life by decreasing the number of medication errors and making it easier to adhere to medication. According to the World Health Organization, around half of patients do not adhere completely to their prescriptions, which leads to chronic illness growth and increased rates of illness or even death.
Electronic prescription applications can help reduce those numbers as they assist patients with tracking their daily doses and viewing their prescriptions. However, doctors can look up unfulfilled prescriptions and issue reminders, making patients more accountable and increasing their medication adherence.
Rapid Refilling
In the past, the refill procedure can be as slow and arduous as the prescription procedure. There are a lot of documents and manual labor, which creates obstacles in the process and can increase drug non-adherence rates. With e-prescription app, the refill process becomes the same as filling prescriptions.
Reduced Errors
As we said earlier, electronic prescription applications eliminate the requirement to fill out paperwork or manual work, which results in higher precision. The prescription process isn’t completely automated. Rather, it is no longer necessary to manually interpret documents and communication issues between parties.
This means that doctors and pharmacies can communicate and discuss the details of the prescription in a matter of minutes to avoid life-threatening errors and keep the patient from the paperwork mess.
Medication Appropriateness
Physicians can access information about a patient’s medical history through E-prescription app and the ability to connect to current medical practice or hospital EMR/EHR systems. They can access vital information like allergies, prior prescribed medications, and chronic illness.
Therefore, they are armed with all the necessary information available to create the most appropriate treatment for each patient, increasing the efficiency of treatments and improving overall health outcomes.
Reduced Healthcare Costs
The above benefits can lead to substantial cost savings across all healthcare patients. By enhancing outcomes and helping to improve medical treatment, increasing the efficiency of medical care, and decreasing unnecessary hospitalizations, apps for e-prescription could help hospitals, and pharmacies reduce substantial healthcare expenses.
Top Eprescription Mobile Apps Available in the Market
After we’ve covered the fundamentals, let’s look at the most well-known market leaders. This will motivate you and help you find innovative ideas for your future project.
CharmHealth
CharmHealth streamlines practice management with an integrated care coordination platform that can be accessed anywhere using a smartphone or web browser. Core features like billing, scheduling, and powerful e-prescribing tools allow doctors to improve processes.
The software connects over 100,000 pharmacies, allowing them to transfer prescriptions electronically. Simplified refill approvals can further decrease the administration burden. The application uses a HIPAA-compliant interface to ensure the patient’s ease of use and data privacy.
Elation Health
Elation Health offers the primary patient experience via a user-centric design. Its mobile and web EHR platform combines robust capabilities and intuitive workflows that allow individualized health plans. In addition to providing standard functions such as electronic prescribing, billing, and charting patients, Elation Health further streamlines medication management.
Features like prescription renewal, cancellation, and SMS messages boost effectiveness. It also offers unique services for concierge and membership procedures. The tools that facilitate recurring payments perfectly align with new care models focusing on prevention rather than care.
RXNT
It’s an end-to-end cloud-based platform that centralizes live patient health information and prescriptions right at the point of care, allowing informed decision-making. RXNT streamlines workflow efficiency with simple EPCS-certified electronic prescribing tools and two-way integrations with pharmacies for scheduling coordination and processing referrals or billing.
It is adaptable across all modules, and users are permitted to meet your practice’s needs. Patients can access a customized website to manage prescriptions, laboratory results, telehealth services, and scheduling auto-scheduling. The level of connectivity and transparency can lead to better health results.
Kareo Clinical
Kareo Clinical is a user-friendly EHR software and app accessible on the internet, iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch. It simplifies recording and workflows, which is ideal for individual general practitioners. Kareo provides comprehensive e-prescribing collaborations that access the latest prescription information and a vast network of pharmacies.
The platform can concentrate on customers’ needs instead of constructing infrastructure. The custom templates for documentation also avoid a rigid, one-size-fits-all approach. The simplified functionality is suitable for individual practitioners well; however, it lacks robust software for specialty areas.
Benchmark Systems
Benchmark Systems adapts to the particular needs of specialty doctors with flexible deployment options and modular EHR tools. Its desktop, web, and mobile platforms cover everything from documentation to e-prescribing. They can be set up to fit specific procedures.
Benchmark allows specialty clinics to enhance core functions, including billing, using custom templates, protocols, and trackers unique to their patients. It is a way to avoid relying on generic practices that lack the specificity necessary for proper, exceptional healthcare.
Benchmark Systems allows robust platform customization down to process for specialists seeking an adaptable system that does not have any general constraints. The practice can balance the need for standardization in reporting and the requirement to tailor it to ensure the highest quality of care.
Key Features to Consider for e-Prescription Mobile App Development
Numerous adjustments have been made to how this industry is conducted, as countless medical mobile applications and software are being developed to facilitate the process and make it more effective. These electronic prescription apps have radically changed the traditional ways of physicians, medical practitioners, pharmacists, and even patients. Let’s have a look at ePrescription app development features.
Features Of Doctors/Physicians Panel
Receive Alerts
Doctors will be notified each time their appointment is due, including the time, dose, and various other vital issues.
Known allergies
The database stores patients’ allergies and helps doctors crosscheck when prescribing new medication to patients.
Access Medicine Database
The best e-prescribing app provides an extensive database of medicines. It makes it easier to look up generic and brand drug names, classifications, and specialties alphabetically, along with a favorites list that can be built.
Generate refill request
The feature allows providers to avoid making manual or verbal patient refill requests. Likewise, pharmacists can call a clinic infrequently to confirm the renewal.
New RX
If there is no refill requirement, the doctor can issue a new prescription to pharmacists, which is then used for the patient in need.
e-Cancel
The system allows physicians to withdraw prescription medications electronically if they are required to be prescribed for inpatients. OPDs can also submit electronic cancellation requests online.
Pending List
The list of medications in the prescription application informs physicians about the medication schedule for the patient. For instance, after the first course is completed, they will be able to suggest the next one from the list.
Dose Calculator
With the help of this feature, the doctors are updated on the dose which must be administered to patients in the hospital.
Electronically Send Prescriptions
Make electronic prescriptions available for any connected pharmacy management software. With one tap, requests for refills can be approved or declined, and you can communicate feedback directly to pharmacies.
Controlled Substances Prescriptions
With medical prescription apps doctors electronically give prescriptions and records controlled substances like opioids. This helps ensure their efficient use and avoids the pitfalls of poor record keeping that can cause abuse of drugs.
Features of Patient Panel
Profile
The first step is for patients or customers to fill in their details to create an account. When they first visit your website or application, you have to sign them into your account using a mobile phone OTP authorization or user ID/password.
Prescription Management
With the help of this feature patients may request prescriptions by scanning and uploading prescriptions to the section for profiles.
Search
The user can look up the medication they need by name, price, availability, location, and even the kind of disease. You can filter the results by cost and alphabetical order and then click on the medication page to access the salt content of the medication, pictures, and information.
Attach Prescription, Purchase, and Tracking
Patients can select the number of strips, upload prescriptions via the profile, and then place a once-off or regular order by choosing one of the payment options [Credit, debit, or PayPal]. The customer receives an email or SMS confirmation, including a tracker link.
Additionally, they receive notifications on various stages of an order, from verifying prescriptions, rejecting them, and reconnecting to a doctor’s process and delivery with the delivery person’s number.
Help Section
Patients can initiate a chat, make a request, and get immediate help. They should also be able to access a refund and other policies. It is recommended to include an FAQ section to ensure the app’s trustworthiness can be maintained.
Features Of Pharmacist/ Medical Vendor Panel
Medication Management
Pharmacy administrators can design medication or upload an inventory of drugs using Excel. They can input names, pictures, inventory information, price per plan, and discount coupons.
Dashboard and Reports
Administrators of pharmacies will have access to the dashboard, which includes numbers and a graph-wise display of the number of pending orders, medicines not in stock, inquiries pending, and additional vital statistics that can assist the pharmacy admin in their work.
Additionally, administration can collect reports on orders, requests, medication and subscriptions, delivery delay in delivery reports, or delivery in transit and perform analyses to enhance business efficiency.
Customer CRM Management
CRM (Customer relationship management) lets the administrator see complete information about customers or patient data, such as medication, doctor prescription names, order details, communication information, and other details. It is possible to offer discounts or loyalty points to a specific patient or segment of customers to encourage retention.
Order Management
The order management is the primary component of the administration application. It assists in tracking all orders, categorized into tabs such as orders received, verified, and rejected, order processing, order delivery, orders received, not delivered, refused by the customer because of packaging, re-shipped, and complete status. Every tab has a status, including the number of orders in the status.
Delivery Management
Administrators can see the current deliveries and follow delivery employees. They can also create and edit documents and view and remove delivery people from the documents they have created for audit purposes.
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Compliances to Follow While Developing an E-Prescription Mobile App
HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)
HIPAA is a federal law that establishes national standards for protecting sensitive information about patients’ health from being divulged without the consent of the patient or consent.
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation)
The GDPR is one of the most savage security and privacy laws worldwide. Developers of health-related apps who do not adhere to the GDPR can face severe fines in the thousands of dollars.
EPCS (Electronic Prescribing for Controlled Substances)
If you are developing an app for e-prescription, adhering to EPCS requirements is vital to secure the management of controlled drugs. EPCS assures that prescriptions for controlled drugs are electronically transmitted, which helps eliminate fraud, decrease errors, and comply with Federal and state rules.
FDA (Food and Drug Administration)
Within the U.S., the FDA regulates applications that offer healthcare-related products, particularly those classified as “medical devices.” Depending on the application’s capabilities, FDA approval may be necessary to guarantee that safe medications are dispensed and provided.
ISO 27001
ISO 27001 certification ensures robust data security and privacy safeguards have been implemented during the development of e-prescription apps. The international standard allows developers to establish systems for protecting sensitive patient information while ensuring regulatory compliance and building trust between users and healthcare providers.
CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act)
For pharmacies serving California residents, the CCPA protects consumer information and legally mandates transparency when collecting data. The law also grants users control over their personal details and allows them to take legal action against the pharmacy application if a leak occurs.
HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act)
HITECH Act concerns the healthcare industry in the United States. This concentrates on the protection and security of medical information stored in electronic format. An app for medicine delivery must take strict security measures to ensure compliance.
What Tech Stack is Required to Develop the ePrescription Mobile App
- Front-End Development: Java, AngularJS, CSS, HTML5
- Android Development: Kotlin
- iOS Development: Swift
- Backend Development: Laravel, NodeJS, Python
- Chats in-App: Batch
- Database: MongoDB, Cassandra, PostgreSQL, MySQL, HBase
- Cloud-based Environment: AWS, Google Cloud
- GPS: Google Maps SDK (Android), MapKit (iOS)
- Push Notification: Google Cloud Messaging (Android), Apple Push (iOS), Twilio, Amazon SNS
- Tools for Business: Google Suite, Zendesk
- Analytics: Big Data, Hadoop, IBM, Apache Flink, Cisco
How to Develop E-Prescription Mobile Application?
Beginning ePrescription app development can seem intimidating, but breaking the process into clear steps makes it much easier. The following is a simple guide to developing a successful pharmacy application, from initial preparation to the launch phase.
Requirement Analysis
The team responsible for app development is required to complete a comprehensive need analysis before the creation process begins. Once the analysis for requirements has been completed, the team can start planning.
Planning and Wireframing
The planning and wireframing phase is when the application is designed, and features are wireframes in their original form. The wireframe is the structure that makes the application, with technologies and features that develop the app into an end-to-end version.
Design and Prototyping
The prototype and design for the electronic prescription application are developed around the software that will be created, and the front-end concept will match the end-to-end back-end design.
Development and Coding
The development team for the app e-prescription will also handle the development and coding required to build an app’s backend that allows the app to function correctly. The code is developed with an advanced programming language.
Testing and Quality Assurance
When the entire development process has been completed, the tests are completed, and the code is tested for quality. The code is checked and verified for good quality to ensure that performance problems can be identified and improved.
Deployment and Launch
When the performance problems and bugs within the pharmacy application are resolved, the app undergoes final tests. Then, the app is released and made available to the marketplace. A feedback loop also follows the deployment process.
What Team Composition is Required to e-Prescription App Development?
Various factors are essential in developing an app, as it’s a complicated process and demands lots of integration. Let’s take a look at the structure of your development team, which you’ll need to build your application or software.
- Business Analyst
- Project Manager
- Android and iOS Application Developers
- Front-End Developers
- Backend Developers
- QA Professionals
- Graphic Designers
How Much Does it Cost to Develop an e-Prescription Mobile App?
The ePrescription app development cost is based on several variables.
- Framework and Technology employed
- The features and functionality needed
- Integration from third parties
- The requirements for compliance and certification
- The development effort is needed
- The location of the development company
Consider these points before you make any decisions. Always employ a reputable and experienced ePrescription app development company to create electronic prescription app. An app that requires access to databases could cost around $45,000, and an app for e-prescription that requires extensive security and compliance features can be priced at as much as $150,000.
How A3Logics can Help you Develop an e-Prescription Mobile App?
Select our ePrescription app development services for the best quality within online pharmacies industry. Our team of experts provides advanced prescription app development. We create digital solutions that are popular and highly valued throughout the entire industry.
By focusing on customized application development and prompt time-to-market, A3logics ensures your app aligns with your requirements and the market’s demands. If you’re looking for an experienced ePrescription app development company, we’re here to help you.
Turn your ePrescription App Vision into Reality – Book a 30-Minute Free Consultation Today!
The Key Takeaway
The way we use technology affects the ways we behave. This is why having an online presence is crucial to any pharmacy’s success. In this blog, we’ve demonstrated how crucial creating an online pharmacy application is. This is no longer just nice to own; quickly distributing medications is vital.
Creating a pharmacy application is an extremely complex process, but not with the expertise of ePrescription app developers. Many crucial decisions will determine its success. From choosing the most effective mobile app builders to incorporating the appropriate features, each stage is crucial.
Your app must be easy to operate and effective. When you select the appropriate method and the right tools, the app you create will be able to meet customers’ needs. It also prepares you for the future of online pharmacies.
FAQs
What is e-prescribing?
Electronic prescribing is a method that allows doctors and other medical personnel to write and distribute prescriptions to pharmacies or patients through an app or website rather than handwritten or faxed suggestions.
What challenges does e-prescription app development solve?
The applications for electronic prescriptions are intended to reduce the human error chance and manual effort, decrease the number of readmissions, reduce physical contact, and much more.
What are the options for e-prescription app monetization?
It is possible to use a range of monetization choices similar to every other app available.
- Different pricing options based on features
- Subscriptions are different from. One-time licensing payments
- Plans based on commissions for the pharmacy market
- Ads
What makes a great e-prescription app?
ePrescription app development involves creating a well-designed electronic prescription application with robust functions and superior performance quality. It is crucial to meet specific requirements, such as HIPAA compliance, and follow general guidelines for secure app development. Additionally, developing a customizable interface ensures practicality and comfort for both pharmacists and pharmacy customers.