Pharmacies also foresee savings, once staff no longer have to call doctors to clarify semi-legible prescriptions and haggle with insurers. Security is a question. Companies and regulators are looking for ways to ensure a prescription comes from a doctor, not someone else who pocketed the device, now protected only by a password. Benedict's board recently okayed several systems for use in Ohio, but questions remain. Pocket prescribers may eventually require a physician's thumb print or retinal scan for activation.
Most systems encrypt the patient's identity while the prescription is sent over the Internet.
Authenticity, that's why. If the idea proves successful, Buckley said, her hospital hopes to sell it to other hospitals as a way to offset declining reimbursements from insurers. But, Buckley added, authenticity has its limits. This means that buyers who've requested scrubs with bloodstains are out of luck. Beer, it turns out, may have more cardiovascular benefit than the much-vaunted red wine.