E-Prescribing Market Trends

Growth Drivers

• Growing Prevalence of Drug Abuse – It is observed that e-prescriptions can reduce drug abuse among healthcare providers and common citizens. It limits the diversion of drugs and can expose the healthcare providers involved in the drug prescription for non-medical use. Hence, governments of nations are being more active to accelerate the adoption of electronic prescriptions. Therefore, such benefits and rising government initiatives are projected to hike market growth over the forecast period.
• Statistics show that over 60% of American adults use prescribed medicines, while 3 in 20 teenagers have used a drug without a prescription. Drug abuse has been reported to cost the United States more than $750 billion annually in costs associated with crime, compromised productivity, and healthcare.

• Medication Errors Caused by Poorly Communicated Prescriptions – On average, over 98000 reported cases of possible medication errors are reported to the FDA in the United States.

•  Escalation in the Adoption of an Electronic Health Record (EHR) System - It is a patient-centered, real-time record-keeping system that securely and promptly makes information accessible to authorized users. 89.9% of office-based physicians and 86% of non-Federal general acute care hospitals have globally adopted EHR in the last few years.

• Rising Cases of Incidence of Chronic Diseases - as a result of which, medical institutions are under pressure to efficiently administer and treat the increased prevalence of these conditions. According to the CDC, 12 out of every 20 people in the US have a chronic illness. The prevalence of these conditions is projected to directly aid the expansion of the e-prescribing market in the forecasted period.

Challenges

• Low Research and Development Investment in Technology in Underdeveloped Countries – resulting in a limited supply of skilled labor caused by low enrolment rates in higher education. Inadequate or unstable policy and regulatory environments capable of promoting progress play a key role in the poor state of science, technology, and innovation in the medical infrastructure of underdeveloped countries.

• Lack of Network Penetration in Rural Areas
• High Initial Cost of Installation