Last year, according to the first National Progress Report on E-Prescribing published by SureScripts and based on data derived from the Pharmacy Health Information Exchange that it operates, 35 million prescriptions were routed electronically in the United States. This number excludes faxed prescriptions, as well as electronic transmission of medication history, formulary, and eligibility. It was also reported that there were more electronic prescriptions in the first three quarters of 2007 than in 2004, 2005, and 2006 combined.

This volume represents 2% of the 1.47 billion prescriptions eligible for electronic transmission. In 2008 SureScripts expects the number of electronic prescriptions to top 100 million, which would be 7% of all eligible prescriptions.

Last year there were over 35,000 prescribers e-prescribing and over 40,000 pharmacies handling electronic prescriptions. The forecast for this year is 85,000 prescribers and 45,000 pharmacies.

A copy of the report is available at surescripts.com/report.