Veterinary medicine has always required flexibility when it comes to prescribing.
Unlike human healthcare, veterinarians treat patients across different species, sizes, ages, and clinical needs. A medication that works for one patient may require a completely different strength, dosage form, flavor, or formulation for another.
That's one reason compounded medications have become such an important part of veterinary medicine.
And the scale may be larger than many people realize.
In a Federal Register notice concerning animal drug compounding, the FDA estimated that veterinarians write approximately 11.3 million prescriptions for compounded animal drugs annually. The estimate was based on approximately 113,394 veterinarians writing an average of 100 compounded prescriptions per year.
While those estimates were published in 2019 and shouldn't be interpreted as current prescription volume, they illustrate something that remains highly relevant today:
Veterinary prescribing can be complex.
The technology supporting it needs to be capable of managing that complexity without making the prescribing experience complicated for veterinarians.
Why Compounding Matters in Veterinary Medicine
Commercially available medications cannot always meet the needs of every veterinary patient.
There may be situations where a veterinarian determines that a patient requires a different strength, formulation, or other clinically relevant variation from an available medication.
The FDA's guidance provides a simple example. A veterinarian may determine that a patient requires a 1.0% solution when the FDA approved solution is 0.1%, documenting the medical rationale for that clinical difference on the prescription.
That example highlights what makes veterinary compounding unique.
The prescription isn't always simply a medication, quantity, and set of directions.
Depending on the medication and patient, prescribing may involve additional considerations around strength, dosage form, instructions, patient specific requirements, pharmacy capabilities, and other formulation details.
The FDA document also discusses information associated with compounded animal drugs including drug strength, patient and species identification, prescribing veterinarian information, pharmacy information, and beyond use dates.
Managing those variables efficiently becomes an important part of the prescribing process.
A Significant Prescription Ecosystem
The FDA's estimates also provide some perspective on the infrastructure supporting animal drug compounding.
At the time of the analysis, FDA cited American Pharmacists Association data estimating that approximately 7,500 of the roughly 56,000 community based pharmacies in the United States specialized in compounding services.
That means veterinary prescribing isn't simply about connecting a veterinarian to a pharmacy.
Different pharmacies may have different capabilities, formularies, formulations, and areas of specialization.
As veterinary medicine becomes more specialized, the technology connecting veterinarians and pharmacies needs to account for those differences.
This is where veterinary ePrescribing has an opportunity to evolve beyond simply digitizing the prescription pad.
Why Compounded Prescribing Is a Technology Challenge
Electronic prescribing sounds simple on the surface.
Select a medication.
Enter the directions.
Choose a pharmacy.
Send the prescription.
But veterinary medicine doesn't always fit neatly into that workflow.
A compounded prescription may require a veterinarian to navigate multiple variables before the prescription can be completed. Those variables may differ based on the patient, medication, formulation, and pharmacy.
That creates an important challenge for veterinary technology.
How do you give veterinarians enough flexibility to prescribe what their patient needs without creating a workflow so complicated that technology becomes another administrative burden?
The answer isn't removing complexity from the prescription.
The complexity may be clinically necessary.
The goal should be removing complexity from the experience of prescribing it.
Complex Formularies Shouldn't Require Complex Workflows
This is one of the principles behind VetWay ePrescribing.
Veterinarians need the flexibility to navigate complex formularies while still having a prescribing experience that feels simple and intuitive.
For compounded medications, that means supporting the additional variables that can accompany the prescription while organizing them into a logical digital workflow.
Rather than forcing every prescription into the same rigid structure, prescribing technology should be capable of adapting to the medication being prescribed.
A veterinarian should be able to select the appropriate medication and work through the relevant formulation options without having to navigate disconnected systems or cumbersome manual processes.
Complex prescriptions shouldn't require complex prescribing.
Technology should handle more of that complexity behind the scenes.
Connecting the Prescription to the Right Pharmacy
Creating the prescription is only part of the equation.
The prescription still needs to reach a pharmacy capable of fulfilling it.
That becomes particularly important with compounded medications because pharmacy capabilities can vary significantly.
A connected veterinary prescribing ecosystem should make it easier for veterinarians to move from selecting a medication to completing the appropriate prescription and electronically transmitting it to the pharmacy.
That's the broader vision behind VetWay and Script Exchange.
VetWay provides the prescribing experience for veterinary teams, while Script Exchange serves as the connectivity layer designed to help prescriptions move electronically across an expanding pharmacy network.
The objective is simple: give veterinarians greater prescribing flexibility without requiring them to manage the complexity of the infrastructure behind it.
Moving Veterinary Prescribing Beyond Fax
Compounding also highlights a broader opportunity for veterinary medicine.
Many prescription workflows still rely heavily on phone calls, fax machines, portals, and other disconnected methods of communication between veterinary practices and pharmacies.
Those workflows become even more challenging when the prescription itself contains additional formulation or patient specific information.
Electronic prescribing creates an opportunity to structure that information digitally and transmit the prescription through a connected workflow.
Instead of treating veterinary ePrescribing as simply a digital replacement for a paper prescription, the industry has an opportunity to build technology specifically around the realities of veterinary medicine.
That includes supporting standard medications.
It also means supporting compounded medications, specialty pharmaceuticals, expanding formularies, and whatever new treatment options emerge next.
Building for the Future of Veterinary Medicine
Veterinary medicine isn't becoming less specialized.
It's becoming more specialized.
Advances in diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, compounding, and personalized treatment approaches are giving veterinarians more options for treating their patients.
That's a positive development for veterinary medicine.
But every additional treatment option creates another requirement for the technology supporting the prescribing process.
The future of veterinary ePrescribing won't simply be about sending more prescriptions electronically.
It will be about giving veterinarians the flexibility to prescribe across an increasingly complex medication ecosystem while making that experience simpler than the workflows they're using today.
That's what we're building toward with VetWay.
Complex prescriptions. Simple prescribing.
Because the more sophisticated veterinary medicine becomes, the easier the technology supporting it should be to use.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
How many compounded animal drug prescriptions are written each year?
In a 2019 Federal Register notice, the FDA estimated that veterinarians write approximately 11.3 million prescriptions for compounded animal drugs annually. The estimate was based on approximately 113,394 veterinarians writing an average of 100 compounded prescriptions per year. Because the estimate was published in 2019, it should not be interpreted as a measurement of current annual prescription volume.
Why are compounded medications used in veterinary medicine?
Veterinary patients may have clinical needs that aren't addressed by an available medication in its existing form. Depending on the circumstances, a veterinarian may determine that a different strength, formulation, or other clinically relevant variation is appropriate for an individual patient. FDA's guidance discusses circumstances in which a compounded drug produces a clinical difference for the identified patient and the veterinarian documents the medical rationale.
Why can compounded prescriptions be more complex?
Compounded medications can involve additional information and patient specific considerations beyond those associated with a straightforward prescription. FDA's document discusses information such as drug strength, patient and species identification, prescribing veterinarian information, pharmacy information, and beyond use dates in connection with compounded animal drug labeling.
How can ePrescribing simplify compounded veterinary prescriptions?
Veterinary ePrescribing technology can organize the variables associated with a prescription into a structured digital workflow. The goal is to give veterinarians the flexibility necessary for more complex prescriptions while making the actual prescribing experience simple, intuitive, and efficient.
How does VetWay support complex veterinary prescribing?
VetWay ePrescribing is being built to support complex formulary prescribing within a streamlined digital workflow. The goal is to give veterinarians the flexibility to navigate medication and formulation options, complete the appropriate prescription, and electronically transmit it to the pharmacy while reducing unnecessary administrative complexity.