[Assessing Electronic Prescription: A Cross-sectional Study of Pharmacists in Germany]

The GERDA ("Protected e-prescription service for pharmacies") project of the Chamber of Pharmacists (LAK) and Pharmacists Association (LAV) of the federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg provided the opportunity to prescribe medications within the telemedical portal "docdirekt" that is operated by the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians of Baden-Wuerttemberg. Against this background, the aim of the study was to explore and prioritize barriers and enablers among pharmacists to participate in a medical supply system that includes electronic prescriptions (e-prescriptions). Based on these determinants, recommendations for optimizing the successful implementation of similar care offers were derived.

A mixed methods design was chosen to explore and prioritize the determinants. In the first step, determinants for participation in an electronic prescribing system were explored by means of individual interviews of docdirekt tele-physicians, primary care physicians and pharmacists. In a second step, these determinants were prioritized through a quantitative survey of pharmacists.

Out of the 523 pharmacists that answered the questionnaire, more than half were willing to participate in an e-prescription system, while 8.5% excluded future participation. A total of 18 determinants for the e-prescription system participation could be explored. The protection of the free pharmacy choice for the patients was identified as the most important determinant, followed by the option of a correction function for e-prescriptions (e. g. to avoid retaxing or medication errors), the integration of the e-prescription into the existing pharmacy IT system and the statutory exclusion of direct contracts with online pharmacies. Time savings and possibly higher remunerations were rated as less relevant.

More than half of the pharmacies surveyed stated that they wanted to participate in an e-prescription system. Widespread introduction of e-prescriptions in planned for January 2022. Successful implementation of this move will be facilitated if the identified determinants are taken into consideration by politics, software developers and associations.