New York to abandon handwritten prescriptions

To tackle prescription opioid abuse and fraud that has resulted in the quadrupling of opioid-related deaths between 2004 and 2013, New York has become the first state in the US to mandate that all prescriptions must be created electronically and sent to pre-selected pharmacies, with penalties including fines and imprisonment for doctors who fail to comply. However, as of January, with only about 60% of the state's 100k prescribers able to send electronic prescriptions, and only 50% of those set up to prescribe controlled substances, many healthcare providers are applying for waivers, citing the complexity of rolling out technical systems in large institutions.

One morning this month, Silvia Cota, a nurse supervisor in the emergency room at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, gathered her nurses together in a huddle to prepare them for the future.

“It really is not a complicated thing,” Ms. Cota told them, speaking loudly over the bustle of patients and emergency room staff. “We just have to get used to it.”

Starting on March 27, the way prescriptions are written in New York State will change. Gone will be doctors’ prescription pads and famously bad handwriting. In their place: pointing and clicking, as prescriptions are created electronically and zapped straight to pharmacies in all but the most exceptional circumstances.

New York is the first state to require that all prescriptions be created electronically and to back up that mandate with penalties, including fines and imprisonment, for physicians who fail to comply. Minnesota has a law requiring electronic prescribing but does not penalize doctors who cling to pen and paper.