An end-to-end flow analysis of the Belgian ePresciption

Samenvatting

In Belgium, the electronic prescription (ePrescription) was launched in 2014 for the general public after extensive pilot testing of both the software (of prescriber and pharmacist) and the architecture. The flow of communication between patient, prescriber and pharmacist from the start was complemented with a paper proof of the electronic prescription. Soon after the national launch, voices were raised to deal with a complete dematerialization of this flow. Dematerialization of this flow means removing all paper or paper-based proofs within this flow. In this study, an evaluation was performed of errors that are currently observed within the flow. In 2018, pharmacists showed moderate satisfaction. Major hindrances that were perceived, were the unavailability of the Belgian eHealth system due to periodic breakdowns and the use of non-authentic databases between prescribers and pharmacists which lead to problems in identifying medication products. Secondly, the still accepted trail of handling a prescription as paper-based, in continuation of the former paper prescriptions, posed a certain threat. A cross-sectional study showed that in the summer of 2018, still 2.26% of the ePrescriptions were treated as the former paper-based prescriptions. Main reasons for doing so are non-compliance to the e-standard and the avoidance of the digital nature of ePrescriptions. Thirdly, still lots of incorrect interactions and state transactions are queried by the software so that a lot of calls from the software lead to unnecessary load for the system. In the final part of this study, the researcher concluded that the solution to obtain an error-free flow is to prevent errors, rather than to detect them. Incorrect digital message construction, together with the unauthentic medication database use, lead to the majority of the errors.

Datum prijs	22 jun. 2020
Originele taal	English
Prijsuitreikende instantie	Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Begeleider	Ronald Buyl (Promotor), Marc Nyssen (Promotor), Pieter Cornu (Co-promotor), Eline Tommelein (Jury), Kurt Barbé (Jury), Stephane Steurbaut (Jury), Iris Steenhout (Jury), Pascal Coorevits (Jury) & Ronald Cornet (Jury)