E-prescribing offers many well-known benefits to physicians, pharmacists and patients alike. Beyond the well-known patient benefits, real-time transactions with automated requests and responses promise to create efficiencies by speeding the medication ordering process, reducing or eliminating the back-and-forth communications between pharmacists and clinicians commonly associated with handwritten prescriptions.

Healthcare providers in today’s environment are committed to promoting patient safety while providing access to the most reliable and innovative treatments. Medication reconciliation, which is defined by The Joint Commission as “the process of comparing a patient’s medication orders to all of the medications that the patient has been taking,” is designed to prevent drug-related errors — including adverse interactions, overdoses or allergic reactions — and can assist healthcare providers, especially during care transitions when patients are most likely to receive new medications or alternative doses.