A Survey of E-Prescription Readiness in Selected Nigeria Hospitals

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Computer Science - Internet, New Technologies, language: English, abstract: Electronic prescribing or e-prescribing (EP) is a computer-based electronic generation and transmission of a prescription. EP systems help to increase patient safety and increases prescribing accuracy, the system also helps to reduce costs through improved legibility. The motivation for e-prescribing is greater safety of drug use and the current unacceptable levels of adverse drug events. The aim of this study is to evaluate the readiness of hospitals in Nigeria to adopt E-Prescription system for patient welfare and improved healthcare service delivery. This paper presented survey results of electronic prescription readiness in Nigeria hospitals. The survey was conducted in Nigeria hospitals, which includes Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), University of Lagos Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Federal Medical Center (FMC Abeokuta) and The Neuropsychiatric hospital, Aro, Abeokuta. A well-structured questionnaire was also developed and was given out to doctors, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and assistants present at the time of survey administration. Data analysis was performed using MATLAB and SPSS for analyzing of closed-ended questions, descriptive statistics, chi-square test and correlation co-efficient. From the result of the analysis, it shows that e-prescription system implementation is economically feasible on the side of an individual but on government side adequate funding for the achievement of EP system does not provide for the health sector to acquire the necessary resource and training skills.