MyRx Pharmacist/Doctor Interface

Heather Klinar, Adam Anderson, Stephen Gardner, Ben Hu, Chris Muller

November 30th, 2011University of Maryland

CMSC 434, Term Project

The Problem:• MyRx seeks to solve the problem that pharmacists and

doctors experience when there is a lack of easy, instant, paperless communication between the two entities.

• MyRx also seeks to allow doctors an easily manageable web interface to view their currently filled and unfilled prescriptions as well as the pharmacies they are registered with.

• Finally, MyRx aims to allow pharmacists an easier way to access paperless records of written prescriptions, doctor information, and allow for further peace of mind when confirming the validity of a patients prescription.

Our Approach:• Our idea was to create a clean and simple web interface which

allowed for doctors to send their prescriptions to the pharmacy electronically. The doctor would be able to specify exactly which medication to prescribe, the dosage, and all of the necessary attributes.

• An easily manageable and understandable interface.• Doctor->Pharmacy prescriptions would be sent.• Pharmacy->Patient pickup would be instantly available.• Patient X would be able to paperlessly

receive their medication at any one of the registered pharmacies by providing the right identification.

• Doctors and Pharmacies would maintain a profile with MyRx and would be allowed to view all current and past prescriptions.

The MyRx Interface

Logging in

• From the MyRx login page, doctors and pharmacists can log in or first time users may create a profile.

• Each unique doctor or pharmacy will be given their own username and password once they have been approved.

• The type of account you have reflects which interface you log into.

First time user? Create a Profile!• New doctors have the leisure of creating their own profile.• Profile submissions must be approved before they are stored as

registered doctors in the MyRx database

• Doctors input their general and practice information and will be contacted directly after their information has been reviewed.

You’re Approved? Log in!• Doctors that log in will receive their own welcome

page, and the opportunity to fill prescriptions.

• Ideally, a news-feed type interface will occupy the doctors homepage, and should be somewhat customizable.

Doctors: Fill a Prescription!• Once clicking “Fill a Prescription”, doctors are taken to the prescription

filing page. Once pharmacies have been registered, a doctor may select a pharmacy from the pharmacy name autocomplete form.

• A doctor may enter the patients name, and all the necessary prescription information as if he were writing it on a normal prescription pad. Instructions may be given to the patient for further assistance.

• When the doctor submits this prescription, every piece of information is reflected in the pharmacies interface as we will see in the upcoming slides.

Pharmacists: Check Valid Prescriptions• When pharmacists log in, they will be presented with all the filled and unfilled

prescriptions that their registered doctors have prescribed.• The “New Prescriptions” button populates the table on the right with a list of

prescriptions that still need to be filled.• The “Completed Prescriptions” button populates the table on the right with a list

of prescriptions that have been filled.

• Patients are listed in alphabetical order, their medication is easily viewable from the prescription chart.

Pharmacists: Verify Patient Info

• After clicking on a patient name from the prescriptions chart, all of the patient info that the doctor recorded is easily visible.

• Pharmacists may then check valid patient identification at a single click.

Usability Tests: Doctors

• We ran our usability test with 5 individuals, some doctors and some physicians.

• Doctors were asked to use our interface to:– Create a profile– Log in– Write/submit a prescription

Usability Tests: Physicians

• Physicians were asked to use our interface to– Create a profile– Receive a message from a doctor that a new

prescription is needed to be filled– View/fill the prescription– Send prescription to doctor/patient– Acknowledge prescription has been filled/sent out– Log out

Usability Tests: Demographics

Post-Test Questionaire

• After administering the usability tests, we asked each participant the following post-test questions:

- What was your favorite aspect of the interface?- What was your least favorite aspect of the interface?- Were there any options for submitting a prescription that

you would want that were absent from the interface?- Describe from 1 to 9 (1 being extremely difficult and 9

being very easy) the difficulty level of navigating through the website interface to submit a prescription.

- Describe from 1 to 9 (1 being extremely difficult and 9 being very easy) the difficulty level of using the website forms to submit a prescription.

Usability Tests: Results

Proposed Modifications

• In order to meet legal requirements, there needs to be an electronic image created for each prescription.

• The display needs to include doctors DEA and NPI numbers• A prescription number needs to be assigned to all completed

prescriptions.• A query by prescription number should be available.• Replace the word “unit” on the display with “strength”.• Include enhancements to the UI to allow for handling of

hand-written or verbal communications.• Create a “hold at later date” option or “holding area” when

prescription inventory is unavailable.• Doctors address and phone number should be on display info.

Future Work Possibilities

For MyRx to be a commercial product, we need to:• Implement a database to manage current and new drugs, their

dosages, doctors and pharmacies that have accounts on the system, and active prescriptions.

• Implement a system to verify doctor’s cedentials when they create an account.

• Create a virtual image for each prescription that is submitted.• Create a system to allow doctors to virtually sign prescriptions.• Attach each prescription and doctor with various ID numbers used

in the prescription drug industry.• Add a section for patients to view their current prescriptions and

receive notifications about them.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank everyone that contributed to completing this project. Firstly, we would like to extend our gratitude to our mentor Thomas Koontz from Express Scripts. He originally gave us the idea for the project, and was very helpful throughout the whole process. Also, we would like to thank all the physicians and pharmacists at the University of Maryland Health Center for contributing to our usability tests. And finally, we would like to thank all others who have not been mentioned, but were extremely helpful in guiding this project to completion.

Thank YouThanks for your time and we hope you enjoyed our design and our presentation. Have a great day!-The MyRx Team