One of the key innovations in Estonia’s cutting-edge e-Healthcare system, e-Prescription is a centralized, paperless system for issuing and handling medical prescriptions.
When a doctor prescribes medicine using the system, he or she does so electronically, with the aid of an online form.
At the pharmacy, all a patient needs to do is present an ID Card. The pharmacist then retrieves the patient’s information from the system and fills the prescription.
All hospitals and pharmacies in the nation are connected to the system.
Because the e-Prescription system draws on data from the national health insurance fund, any state medical subsidies that the patient is entitled to also appear, and the medicine is discounted accordingly.
Another major advantage of the system is that doctor visits are no longer needed for routine refills. A patient can contact the doctor by e-mail, Skype or phone, and the doctors can issue refills with just a couple clicks of a mouse.
This frees up time for both the patient and the doctor, and reduces administrative strain on the hospital.
In 2013, 95% of all prescriptions in the country were being issued electronically.