ComSignTrust™ e-Prescriptions White Paper

Creating a Personal Health Platform That Matters – A Nation Wide Perspective of Digital Signature Enabled e-Prescriptions

e-Prescriptions Background

Today, it is estimated that around 30% of all doctor visits are strictly related to prescription renewals. e-Prescription provides any physician, in the community or in the hospital, the ability to legally e-Sign a digital prescription without having the patient to physically arrive to the physician’s clinic just for prescription renewal purposes. This is more private and more secured as well as more convenient for the health provider and the patient. The digital signing procedure of the prescription reduces clinical risks associated and forgery with traditional paper script writing. The e-Prescription solution is a key to revolutionize healthcare clinical workflow while dramatically improving healthcare quality, reducing costs, and improving quality of service for both patients and physicians.

How do e-Prescriptions Work?

The prescription request is made by the patient directly online on his personal health portal at his convenience.

These requests are automatically routed to the patient’s personal physician who signs the prescription by means of a digital signature. Once the prescription is signed, the patient is securely notified on his cellular phone that his prescription has been issued and he can go and collect it from every pharmacy only by presenting his ID card. The physician’s digital signature with a biometric PIN, is automatically verified upon medication issuing.

Benefits of e-Prescriptions

  • Cost reductions due to lowered unnecessary visits, paper work and more efficient work flow between clinics and pharmacies
  • Dramatic savings of physician and patients valuable time
  • Highly securing patient’s privacy and safety
  • High physician and patient satisfaction
  • Eliminates forged prescriptions

Limitations of Traditional Paper-Based Prescriptions

  • Physicians investing time in patients who require only prescription renewals
  • Patients wasting unnecessary time at clinics
  • Lost labor time as employees often use the working hours to reach clinics
  • Costs and time bound to printing paper-based prescriptions
  • Paper prescriptions get lost
  • Forgery risks on paper-based prescriptions
  • The paper prescription does not always keep the patient privacy while visiting the pharmacy

Use Case

Clalit Health Care, ISRAEL (4.2 Million members with ~10,000 physicians)

According to surveys conducted by Clalit Health Services, the 2nd largest public healthcare organization in the world, approximately 60% of all its issued prescriptions were intended to chronically treated patients. Inevitably, this lead to a considerable amount of time invested by the doctor, patient, clinic and pharmacy staff for the medicine allocation. The only digital alternative that met the requirements of the law was the biometric digital signature.

Clalit Health Care Services recently implemented an e-Prescribing solution which is currently used by more than 1300 clinics, and has generated enthusiastic responses from doctors and extreme satisfaction from patients and pharmacists. The digital prescription solution is able to save 40 seconds of each medical interaction.
The automation of the prescriptions signing process allows doctors to improve the way they supervise and follow up with patients, along with a better handling of each patient’s disease treatment. Unlike the hand written signature prescriptions that are also eligible for forgery, security mechanisms in the Clalit Services e-Prescribing solution provides a significant barrier for forging prescriptions.

“The e-Prescribing solution is a critical element of Clalit’s online offerings. We adapt ourselves to our customers’ dynamic needs. e-Prescribing is a quantum leap in medical–clinical services, since it will enable the patient to pick up his regular medication at his own convenient time and place, without having to go through his local clinic to collect a paper prescription. Moreover, digital prescription saves our doctors precious time currently invested in printing and manually signing prescriptions. Our doctors can now concentrate on their patient. And our bonus – reducing paper and printer equipment, saving money and contributing to a better environment.”

Dr. Yossi Bahagon, Director of the Digital Medicine Division at Clalit

ComSignTrust™ is part of the Comda Group, a market leading IT Security company since 1985. The group also includes ComSign, Israel’s leading commercial certified authority, Comda Ltd., an IT Security Integration entity, and ComSignTrust™, the digital signature software solution company.