Implementation of electronic prescribing system can overcome many problems of the paper prescribing system, and provide numerous opportunities of more effective and advantageous prescribing. Successful implementation of such a system requires complete and deep understanding of work content, human force, and workflow of paper prescribing. The current study was designed in order to model the current business process of outpatient prescribing in Iran and clarify different actions during this process. In order to describe the prescribing process and the system features in Iran, the methodology of business process modeling and analysis was used in the present study. The results of the process documentation were analyzed using a conceptual model of workflow elements and the technique of modeling "As-Is" business processes. Analysis of the current (as-is) prescribing process demonstrated that Iran stood at the first levels of sophistication in graduated levels of electronic prescribing, namely electronic prescription reference, and that there were problematic areas including bottlenecks, redundant and duplicated work, concentration of decision nodes, and communicative weaknesses among stakeholders of the process. Using information technology in some activities of medication prescription in Iran has not eliminated the dependence of the stakeholders on paper-based documents and prescriptions. Therefore, it is necessary to implement proper system programming in order to support change management and solve the problems in the existing prescribing process. To this end, a suitable basis should be provided for reorganization and improvement of the prescribing process for the future electronic systems.

Introduction: The role which nurses are playing in medication management is seriously changing over time. Nurses are authorized to prescribe medications in an ever-increasing number of countries. The main objective of the present review study is to introduce nurse prescribing as well as different types of prescriptions and their corresponding advantages, disadvantages, and barriers in the leading countries of nursing. Methods: The present study was performed by searching over the articles in information databases such as “ PubMed” , “ Google Scholar” , “ Embase” , “ Proquest” , “ Ovid” , “ Web of Science” and “ Science Direct” using the English keywords such as “ independent prescribing” , “ supplementary nurse prescribing” and “ prescribing” . As a result, 250 relevant papers were collected, out of which 38 ones were used in the present study. Results: The results of searching the sources and articles related to nurse prescribing were presented as the definition of nurse prescribing as well as different types of prescribing and their advantages and obstacles in the leading countries in nurse medication prescribing. Conclusions: Although there are many advantages for nurse prescribing such as cost-effectiveness of this method, the official prescribing by nurses is not authorized in many Asian countries such as Iran. Considering the positive role of nurse prescribing in the nursing professional improvement and the patient's satisfaction, it is also hoped to be applied in all countries.

Rational prescribing increases the quality of health care and patient outcomes. In this study, the quality of drug prescription in specialist physicians in Isfahan province of Iran was assessed for evaluating the rational use of drugs and improving the therapeutic outcomes.This retrospective survey was conducted on a total of 7999530 prescriptions from all general and specialist physicians. The most frequently prescribed drugs and World Health Organization (WHO) prescribing indicators were evaluated in prescriptions of all medical specialties.Assessment of prescribing indicators revealed poor-quality prescribing performance by general practitioners including high number of medicines prescribed per clients, wide range of prescribed medicines in each prescription, over-prescribing of antibiotics, corticosteroids and injectable drugs. There were also wide differences in the pattern of drug prescribing depending on the medical specialties. The average number of drugs prescribed per encounter by specialists was less than generalists except for the cardiologists. General practitioners, otorhinolaryngologists and general surgeons prescribed more antibiotics. Orthopedic surgeons and general practitioners were the top prescribers of injectable and corticosteroid drugs. The most frequently prescribed medicine groups varied according to the prescribers’ medical specialty. Analgesics and antipyretics were the most prescribed preparations in general medicine, pediatrics, orthopedics, general surgery and cardiology.Because of the wide variability in the pattern of drug prescribing depending on the medical specialties, specific performance indicators should be developed for each specific medical specialty for better assessing of prescribing quality in specialist physicians.