This appeared earlier in the week.
Vic to track high-risk drug prescriptions
- By Georgie Moore
- Australian Associated Press
Victoria will begin tracking opioid and benzodiazepine prescriptions in real time to help combat doctor-shopping, addiction and overdoses.
Health Minister Jill Hennessy says the monitoring system, to be used by prescribing doctors and pharmacists, will be rolled out across the western Victorian primary health network on Monday before extending to the rest of the state from early next year.
The scheme will only monitor medications carrying a high risk of dependency, such as opioids and benzodiazepines.
"It helps us ensure that we're not having those very, very dangerous cocktails of prescription medicines being given out to patients," Ms Hennessy told reporters on Saturday.
"It also helps out pharmacists and doctors potentially intervene at an earlier stage if someone's developing an addiction to prescription medicines."
In 2017, 417 Victorian deaths were associated with prescription drugs.
Melbourne couple Jill and Roger Cheal lost their 31-year-old daughter, Georgia, to pain medication misuse in 2006 and believe prescription monitoring may have saved her life.
Georgia was injured in a car accident a decade earlier and became addicted to medication used to manage ongoing pain.
"When she died, she died with a toxic mix of medication," Jill Cheal said.
"It shouldn't have been prescribed, but part of the problem was there was a lack communication between the treating doctors.
"So if this prescription monitoring system had been in place, that mightn't have happened."
Only prescribing doctors and pharmacists will be able to access a patient's scripts for high-risk medications and the system will not be linked to the federal government's controversial My Health Record scheme, which is plagued by data privacy concerns.
More here:
This is more than reasonable as the Real Time Monitoring System has to be real time and if there is something the secondary myHR is not it is NOT real-time. Never was and never will be!
I wonder how prescribers and pharmacists are going to manage the screen space and log-ons with these multiple systems. Seems to me there are some security risks and overlaps that may need to be thought through.
David.
You raise a good point David, I think the dominate application on the screen will be the one in the closest proximity to the users needs. The MyHR cost/benefit to an indervidual healthcare worker will be a few windows behind the lead pack
ReplyDeleteTim will tell them they have to link"the system will not be linked to the federal government's controversial My Health Record scheme".
ReplyDeleteOh don't you worry about that. Tim will tell VIC they just have to link up to My Health Record. We can't afford to have recalcitrant States going hither and thither. If he tells the Senate Inquiry how bad it would look maybe the Senators will help him with some huffing and puffing like a big bad wolf.
The thing is, Timmy has lost face, and carries little if any political capital. Who would listen to him now. The states have a shiny national strategy. Time to put the MyHR whisper to bed so the big kids are play.
ReplyDeleteNothing against the man personally and he has an agenda. It is obvious the world has moved on and his vision is from a time long gone and he was part of the Turnbull theory. The performance has been substandard for the salary paid and expect Iona set. To move forward a new team might be better.
ReplyDeleteNothing anyone says or does will make a jot of difference. Opt-out will rin the gauntlet. Maybe 30%, even 40% will opt_out. That leaves 60% or more of 25 million Australians will have a .y Health Record.
ReplyDeleteRevardless of the fact that most people dkn't care the spin will be thus "the people ha e spoken. The large majority have said they want a My Health Record. 60+% is a clear majority. Therefore, doctors who don't use the record will face financial penalties which will be announced after the opt_out -
period closes in October.
2:14PM. That might well be a valid set of assumptions. Noting optout period ends November not October. This has rightly and clearly communicated as a choice, therefore the 40% will need to be catered for. Government is learning that nudging works both ways. They would tread carefully before implementing you more extreme point. I am sure that is what Tim Kelsey would like
ReplyDeleteAFAIK, the government needs to have parliament pass its amendments to the legislation to delete a cancelled health record and to make police etc get a warrant before accessing a health record.
ReplyDeleteSuppose Labor and the independents in the senate don't go along with that?
Rather stuffs the government, don't you think?
No problem with the 40% as they have already been catered for by opting out. They can opt-in anytime they want.
ReplyDeleteHow are they giving it the bird when real time prescription monitoring has never been it's purpose or goal, as you say? I understand the desire to do everything possible to make sure MHR is dead and buried but this is like saying the submarine contract should be torn up, not because it's a bad submarine, but because it won't also fly and we're trying to buy better planes too.
ReplyDeleteMy point was the Vic has sensibly invested in a system that can make a real difference rather than try to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear that is the myHR. You should allocate screen space and money where is is most valuable!
ReplyDeleteDavid.
Real time prescription monitoring is a goal of ADHA, though.
ReplyDeleteFramework For Action
Australia’s National Digital Health Strategy
National Digital Health Priority Activities 2018 - 2022
Page 13
Medicines Safety
4.1 Nationally coordinated digital medicines program
4.1.9 Real-time prescription monitoring
I recall real time prescription was eyed by the then PCEHR, a five hundred and fifty dollar deal was struck with Tasmania for a license with another four hundred and fifty million set aside to build a nation system. The MyHR Record has this buried in its bowls ready to suck that information up. Probably why the home of fears is keen on unrestricted access, that would avoid any ethics committee questions.
ReplyDelete