Over the next few years, the Connecting for Health IT programme for the NHS in England is due to implement electronic prescribing systems at all hospitals in England. Furthermore, the other UK countries are likely to follow suit with clinical IT implementation programmes, and these developments will generate interest in electronic prescribing at European and international level. There is therefore likely to be an exponential growth in the significance of electronic prescribing over the next ten years. Principles of Electronic Prescribing discusses the basic principles of design and implementation of secondary care electronic medicines management systems, and how their design and configuration can impact on benefits realization, hospital workflow and clinical practice.