Electronic prescriptions reduce drug errors

We've replaced snail mail with email and books with ebooks.

Now, a new study by Australian researchers shows we could benefit by replacing doctors' prescriptions pads with an electronic version.

The researchers looked at prescriptions written at two Australian hospitals.

They found the number of errors made dropped by 60 percent when doctors used computers to write their prescriptions instead of writing them by hand.

Researchers say the most common prescription problems they encountered were unclear, incomplete or illegible orders.