medical recipe information

A prescription (℞) is a health-care program implemented by a physician or other qualified practitioner in the form of instructions that govern the plan of care for an individual patient.[1] A qualified practitioner might be a physician, physician assistant, dentist, nurse practitioner, pharmacist, psychologist, or other health care provider. Prescriptions may include orders to be performed by a patient, caretaker, nurse, pharmacist, physician, other therapist, or by automated equipment, such as an intravenous infusion pump. Formerly, prescriptions often included detailed instructions regarding compounding of medications but as medications have increasingly become pre-packaged manufactured products, the term "prescription" now usually refers to an order that a pharmacist dispense and that a patient take certain medications. Prescriptions have legal implications, as they may indicate that the prescriber takes responsibility for the clinical care of the patient and in particular for monitoring efficacy and safety. As medical practice has become increasingly complex, the scope of meaning of the term "prescription" has broadened to also include clinical assessments, laboratory tests, and imaging studies relevant to optimizing the safety or efficacy of medical treatment.

Prescriptions may be entered into an electronic medical record system and transmitted electronically to a pharmacy. Alternatively, a prescription may be handwritten on preprinted prescription forms that are assembled into pads, or printed onto similar forms using a computer printer. In some cases, a prescription may be transmitted from the physician to the pharmacist orally by telephone, although this practice may increase the risk of medical error. The content of a prescription includes the name and address of the prescribing provider and any other legal requirement such as a registration number (e.g. DEA Number in the United States). Unique for each prescription is the name of the patient. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the patient's name and address must also be recorded. Each prescription is dated and some jurisdictions may place a time limit on the prescription.[2] In the past, prescriptions contained instructions for the pharmacist to use for compounding the pharmaceutical product but most prescriptions now specify pharmaceutical products that were manufactured and require little or no preparation by the pharmacist. Prescriptions also contain directions for the patient to follow when taking the drug. These directions are printed on the label of the pharmaceutical product.

℞ is a symbol meaning "prescription". It is sometimes transliterated as "Rx" or just "Rx". This symbol originated in medieval manuscripts as an abbreviation of the Late Latin verb recipe, the imperative form of recipere, "to take" or "take thus".[3] Literally, the Latin word recipe means simply "Take...." and medieval prescriptions invariably began with the command to "take" certain materials and compound them in specified ways.[4]

Folk theories about the origin of the symbol ℞ note its similarity to the Eye of Horus,[5][6] or to the ancient symbol for Zeus or Jupiter, (♃), gods whose protection may have been sought in medical contexts.[7]

The word "prescription", from "pre-" ("before") and "script" ("writing, written"), refers to the fact that the prescription is an order that must be written down before a compound drug can be prepared. Those within the industry will often call prescriptions simply "scripts".

In certain states medical marijuana legislation has been drafted calling for a health care professional's written or oral "recommendation", in the belief that a written one would be legally distinguishable from a prescription, but since written advice to a patient is what a prescription is, that belief is mistaken.[citation needed] Jurisdictions may adopt a statutory definition of "prescription" that applies as a term of art only to the operation of that statute (see below about prescriptions that may legally be filled with prescription-only items), but the general legal definition of the word is this broad one.