Cultivating the Installed Base: The Introduction of e-Prescription in Greece

Excerpt

In this chapter we explore the surprisingly swift deployment of a national e-prescription service in Greece. We position e-prescribing within the overall Greek health system and we describe how the new electronic service evolved to inscribe specific prescribing policies, to provide clinical decision support and to facilitate the processes and roles of policy and financing stakeholders. We identify how a series of pragmatic decisions allowed building upon a “good-enough” installed base by exploiting its latent potential without perpetuating all of its weaknesses, and by being responsive to exogenous shifts. These tactical decisions, were supported by a favourable and enabling combination of novel technological capabilities, standards and architectural arrangements.