General practitioners’ views on using a prescribing substitution application (ScriptSwitch®)
<p><strong>Background</strong> General practitioners (GPs) are increasingly pressured to prescribe cost-effectively, due to rising prescribing expenditure and limited budgets. A computerised prescribing substitution application (ScriptSwitch®) provides ‘pop-ups’ of cost-saving drug...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT
2013-10-01
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| Series: | Journal of Innovation in Health Informatics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hijournal.bcs.org/index.php/jhi/article/view/6 |
| _version_ | 1811307661673627648 |
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| author | Carly Hire Bruno Rushforth |
| author_facet | Carly Hire Bruno Rushforth |
| author_sort | Carly Hire |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | <p><strong>Background</strong> General practitioners (GPs) are increasingly pressured to prescribe cost-effectively, due to rising prescribing expenditure and limited budgets. A computerised prescribing substitution application (ScriptSwitch®) provides ‘pop-ups’ of cost-saving drug switches at the point of prescribing. It has been used by some United Kingdom local health commissioning organisations as part of a medicines management strategy.</p><p><strong>Objective</strong> To explore GPs’ views on using this prescribing substitution application in their day-to-day clinical practice.</p><p><strong>Methods</strong> Qualitative study employing face-to-face semi-structured interviews, undertaken with a convenience sample of eight GPs across five practices within one local health commissioning area in the North of England. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed.</p><p><strong>Results</strong> Six themes were identified including: (1) GPs’ acceptance, (2) the application’s impact, (3) external control, (4) disruption to workflow, (5) GP willingness to switch and (6) patient willingness to switch.</p><p><strong>Conclusions</strong> Clinician, patient and organisational factors were identified which were assumed by GPs to affect the engagement with the application. Despite general acceptance of the application to enhance cost-effective prescribing, its impact was perceived to be limited within the context of existing cost-effective prescribing initiatives. The application’s perceived lack of ‘learning’—e.g. offering the same switch despite the prescriber repeatedly declining this—devalued users’ confidence in it. With patients varying in amenability and acceptance to drug switches, GPs appear to experience tension between considering individual patient choice and wider practice population prescribing priorities. Giving GPs more control in adapting the application to their own local prescribing priorities may enhance its success.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T09:08:20Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-b4c60ecdb7a942fc8939a44b0cf11e54 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2058-4555 2058-4563 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T09:08:20Z |
| publishDate | 2013-10-01 |
| publisher | BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Innovation in Health Informatics |
| spelling | doaj.art-b4c60ecdb7a942fc8939a44b0cf11e542022-12-22T02:52:56ZengBCS, The Chartered Institute for ITJournal of Innovation in Health Informatics2058-45552058-45632013-10-0121111110.14236/jhi.v21i1.63General practitioners’ views on using a prescribing substitution application (ScriptSwitch®)Carly Hire0Bruno Rushforth1School of Medicine, University of Leeds Academic Unit of Primary Care, Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of LeedsAcademic Unit of Primary Care, Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Leeds<p><strong>Background</strong> General practitioners (GPs) are increasingly pressured to prescribe cost-effectively, due to rising prescribing expenditure and limited budgets. A computerised prescribing substitution application (ScriptSwitch®) provides ‘pop-ups’ of cost-saving drug switches at the point of prescribing. It has been used by some United Kingdom local health commissioning organisations as part of a medicines management strategy.</p><p><strong>Objective</strong> To explore GPs’ views on using this prescribing substitution application in their day-to-day clinical practice.</p><p><strong>Methods</strong> Qualitative study employing face-to-face semi-structured interviews, undertaken with a convenience sample of eight GPs across five practices within one local health commissioning area in the North of England. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed.</p><p><strong>Results</strong> Six themes were identified including: (1) GPs’ acceptance, (2) the application’s impact, (3) external control, (4) disruption to workflow, (5) GP willingness to switch and (6) patient willingness to switch.</p><p><strong>Conclusions</strong> Clinician, patient and organisational factors were identified which were assumed by GPs to affect the engagement with the application. Despite general acceptance of the application to enhance cost-effective prescribing, its impact was perceived to be limited within the context of existing cost-effective prescribing initiatives. The application’s perceived lack of ‘learning’—e.g. offering the same switch despite the prescriber repeatedly declining this—devalued users’ confidence in it. With patients varying in amenability and acceptance to drug switches, GPs appear to experience tension between considering individual patient choice and wider practice population prescribing priorities. Giving GPs more control in adapting the application to their own local prescribing priorities may enhance its success.</p>http://hijournal.bcs.org/index.php/jhi/article/view/6clinical electronic prescribingdecision support systemsevidence-based practicehealth expendituresqualitative research |
| spellingShingle | Carly Hire Bruno Rushforth General practitioners’ views on using a prescribing substitution application (ScriptSwitch®) Journal of Innovation in Health Informatics clinical electronic prescribing decision support systems evidence-based practice health expenditures qualitative research |
| title | General practitioners’ views on using a prescribing substitution application (ScriptSwitch®) |
| title_full | General practitioners’ views on using a prescribing substitution application (ScriptSwitch®) |
| title_fullStr | General practitioners’ views on using a prescribing substitution application (ScriptSwitch®) |
| title_full_unstemmed | General practitioners’ views on using a prescribing substitution application (ScriptSwitch®) |
| title_short | General practitioners’ views on using a prescribing substitution application (ScriptSwitch®) |
| title_sort | general practitioners views on using a prescribing substitution application scriptswitch r |
| topic | clinical electronic prescribing decision support systems evidence-based practice health expenditures qualitative research |
| url | http://hijournal.bcs.org/index.php/jhi/article/view/6 |
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