Electronic Prescriptions Have Finally Come Would You Believe! It Would Be Fair To Say It Has Been A Pretty Slow Start So Far And May Remain So!

This appeared last week:

Last week a GP wrote Australia's first ever e-script: Here's what doctors can expect

It's been decades in the making but the health system's long-awaited e-prescribing adventure has begun

13th May 2020

By Heather Saxena

Meet Dr David Corbet, who has just earned a very unique place in Australian health care history.

Last Tuesday, the GP from Anglesea, on Victoria’s Surf Coast, wrote the first ever legal electronic prescription which was successfully dispensed by a pharmacy.

OK, no moon-landing but in terms of the struggle involved in bringing 21st Century technology to bare on an act that occurs literally hundreds of millions of times a year, it is probably close. 

“It was very simple,” Dr Corbet says of the first e-prescription (which was for an asthma medication).

“The user interface on the practice software is essentially the same you would normally use for writing a script, except that it has an e-script button and you can select which way you want to send it.”

By pressing that button, Dr Corbet activated the Federal Government’s e-prescribing system, sending a unique web link via SMS to his patient’s phone.

The link, known as a ‘token’, could also have been emailed to the patient or printed out as a QR code, which, when scanned, opens up the details about the script.

Dr Corbet’s patient then forwarded the token to the pharmacy for dispensing.

“And you can resend the SMS if someone loses it. You can also cancel scripts at any time from within the software.

“There’s also a nice way to authenticate S8 scripts where the doctor re-inputs their password to make the prescription valid.”

Dr Corbet’s practice was selected to beta test e-prescribing because it’s in the unique position of being the only practice in a town that has just one pharmacy.

He says both himself and the pharmacist Jason Bratuskins have a keen interest in IT.

Following the successful test, Dr Corbet estimates around 50% of scripts in his practice are electronic. E-scripts and are becoming “more and more regular”, he tells Australian Doctor.

“There have been no problems and it is going well.”

But he says time is still needed to allow patients to adapt to the latest change, with some turning down the offer of an e-script because they “won’t know what to do with it”.

The practice is also holding off offering the electronic scripts to patients who may find the token system too complex.

“For most of our 90-year-olds, it’s not quite so straight forward.”

More here:

https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/last-week-gp-wrote-australias-first-ever-escript-heres-what-doctors-can-expect

I guess the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. One has to think it will be a good while before we see significant use of the system, especially as I understand the Pharmacy Guild does not like the way EP is being implemented.

See here:

‘Token’ model to cause chaos?

Megan Haggan 30/04/2020

The “rushed” introduction of electronic prescriptions is set to cause unnecessary chaos, warns the Pharmacy Guild

The Guild has said in a statement that the planned fast-tracking of electronic prescriptions will cause unnecessary chaos and be a backward step for patient care at exactly the wrong time.
The imminent fast-tracking of the electronic prescriptions (FTEP) is part of the Government’s COVID-19 National Health Plan.
The Guild says that on behalf of the community pharmacists working in thousands of pharmacies across Australia, it cannot support the introduction of a measure which it says will impose further significant disruption at a time when community pharmacies are already under intense pressures to support their patients during COVID-19.
The proposed fast-track introduction of the “token” model for electronic prescriptions is the wrong move at a time when the system and pharmacy network is clearly not ready and experiencing unprecedented challenges, the Guild says.
The “untested” system, under which prescriptions would be conveyed by “tokens” sent to patients by text or email, presents unnecessary risks to patient care, says the organisation.
This system will impose unwarranted disruption to the administrative and clinical workflow of both prescribers and community pharmacies already having to adjust to new arrangements in support of the COVID-19 National Health Plan, it says.
…..
“This is why the Guild has recommended, through the Electronic Prescribing National Change and Adoption Working Group, that the alternative model known as the Active-Script List (ASL) be prioritised as it best supports a patient’s access to their medicines via electronic prescribing and best enables the community pharmacy to support this access.”
The Guild says that under the ASL system, the patient’s “active” prescriptions can be authorised for access by the patient’s chosen community pharmacy without the need for a token or multiple tokens to be self-managed by the patient.
“While the Guild will continue to be a strong supporter and contributor to the national electronic prescriptions project, it recommends the FTEP (Token) be removed from the COVID-19 National Health Plan in favour of the ASL model, and that maintaining patient access to medicines during COVID-19 is achievable by the appropriate resourcing and funding of the current COVID-19 measures,” it says.

https://ajp.com.au/covid-19/token-model-to-cause-chaos/

I think it would be sensible to stand back and see how this plays out. As we all know if the Guild is not on side things may move very slowly!

David.