Medical prescription
Historically, it was a physician's instruction to an apothecary listing the materials to be compounded into a treatment—the symbol ℞ (a capital letter R, crossed to indicate abbreviation) comes from the first word of a medieval prescription, Latin recipe (lit.
[1][b][c] Medieval prescriptions invariably began with the instruction from the physician to the apothecary to "take" certain materials and compound them in specified ways.
[6] For a communication to be accepted as a legal medical prescription, it needs to be filed by a qualified dentist, advanced practice nurse, physician, or veterinarian, for whom the medication prescribed is within their scope of practice to prescribe.
[citation needed] Prescriptions also contain directions for the patient to follow when taking the drug.
Some jurisdictions, drug types or patient groups require additional information as explained below.
Prescriptions will also contain instructions on whether the prescriber will allow the pharmacist to substitute a generic version of the drug.
[8] In Britain's National Health Service, doctors are reminded that money spent on branded rather than generic drugs is consequently not available for more deserving cases.
All 50 US states and the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam allow registered certified nurse practitioners and other advanced practice registered nurses (such as certified nurse-midwives) prescription power (with some states including limitations to controlled substances).
Clinical pharmacists are allowed to prescribe in some US states through the use of a drug formulary or collaboration agreements.
[15] In all US states, optometrists prescribe medications to treat certain eye diseases, and also issue spectacle and contact lens prescriptions for corrective eyewear.
In August 2013, legislative changes in the UK allowed physiotherapists and podiatrists to have independent prescribing rights for licensed medicines that are used to treat conditions within their own area of expertise and competence.
These orders also provide a standard procedure for determining if administration is necessary and details of how it is to be performed safely.
These are typically used to authorize certain people to perform preventive, low-risk, or emergency care that would be otherwise logistically cumbersome to authorize for individual patients, including vaccinations,[23] prevention of cavities, birth control, treatment of infectious diseases,[24] and reversal of drug overdoses.
[35] Over the years, prescribers have developed many conventions for prescription-writing, with the goal of avoiding ambiguities or misinterpretation.
Examples of prescription devices include dental cement (for affixing braces to tooth surfaces), various prostheses, gut sutures, sickle cell tests, cervical cap and ultrasound monitor.
[citation needed] In some jurisdictions, hypodermic syringes are in a special class of their own, regulated as illicit drug use accessories[42] separate from regular medical legislation.
So long as there were medications and a writing system to capture directions for preparation and usage, there were prescriptions.
The oldest known medical prescription text was found at Ebla, in modern Syria, and dates back to around 2500 BCE.
[48] The superscription section contains the date of the prescription and patient information (name, address, age, etc.).
[54] In the UK a project called the Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions (ETP) within the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) is currently[when?]
Some online pharmacies also offer services to customers over the internet, allowing users to specify the store that they will pick up the medicine from.
Many pharmacies now offer services to ship prescription refills right to the patient's home.
The modified forms also contain predefined choices such as common quantities, units and frequencies that the prescriber may circle rather than write out.
