Intervention to reduce telephone prescription requests

To evaluate a systematic effort to reduce telephone orders for prescription medications in a community family practice.

Three-year intervention project.

Solo family practice in Ottawa.

All patients requesting telephone orders for prescription medications.

A retrospective analysis of phone requests and orders was conducted on 1 continuous year's records. A new office policy was instituted on October 9, 1992, discouraging telephone orders for prescription medication. Prescription telephone requests and orders were then monitored continuously for the next 3 years.

Number of telephone prescription requests and orders per half-day 1 year before the intervention compared with the number for the 3 years after the intervention.

One year before the intervention, there were 4.96 telephone prescription requests per half-day: 3 years after the intervention this number fell to 0.85. One year before the intervention, the number of telephone prescription orders per half-day was 4.80; this number fell continuously to 0.67 during the 3 years following the intervention.

We observed a reduction in the number of telephone prescription requests and orders following the introduction of an office policy that encouraged prescribing and renewing medication in person.