He's calling on Congress to require computerization of every doctor's prescription within three years. A focus on handwriting does nothing to ensure necessary information is available to avoid drug interactions, overdoses and allergic reactions, he added. Others noted that laws aimed at legibility will be hard to enforce. There are no penmanship police. To see if anything's actually changed because of Washington's measure, the pharmacy board is studying prescriptions written since the law took effect in June to see how many are deemed legible by a three-person panel.
Past history suggests it'll take more to clean up doctors' prescription-writing habits.
WSMA passed policy in 1994 calling on doctors to add a purpose line to every prescription. That measure had absolutely no impact, however. Now four years after the policy, that percentage remains exactly the same, said William O. Robertson, MD, a pediatrician and medical director of the Washington Poison Center. He's optimistic, however, that debate arising out of the state's legibility law finally will change that and prescription-writing habits overall. Part of the impetus may come from another part of the law, which called on the state health department to develop broad recommendations on reducing medication errors.