Sometimes I feel reporting on some ADHA initiatives is a trifle too uncritical.
This seems to be un example!
E-scripts hit the big time
Australia’s digital health sector all too often fails to deliver on the hype, but electronic prescribing capabilities appear to be the exception.
Introduced in May last year as a pandemic safety measure, more than 12 million e-scripts have now been issued, according to Australian Digital Health Agency figures.
E-scripts act as replacements for a paper script by sending a unique digital token directly to patients via text or email, and can also be uploaded to Active Script List.
The interoperability with Active Script List allows patients, GPs and pharmacists to share access to a consolidated digital wallet containing all active prescriptions for the patient.
According to Fred Naismith, CEO of pharmacy sector tech vendor Fred IT, although e-scripts were implemented only last year, the concept has been in the works for almost a decade.
“The basic building blocks of e-scripts have been around for the past 10 years – there’s a version called electronic transfer of scripts that’s been built out over a number of years, but the pandemic has pushed it the last few steps across the line,” Mr Naismith told The Medical Republic.
“The technologies involved may be challenging, but it’s usually the legal and the governmental approvals that took all the time.”
Take-up has been promising, with ADHA data indicating that about 22,000 prescribers and at least 98% of community pharmacies have embraced the technology.
“We are doing about 500,000 e-scripts a week now – it’s really growing every day,” Mr Naismith said.
“There is always extra uptake when areas go into lockdown and we’ve been able to follow the statistics across the country as various lockdowns have occurred.
“In New South Wales, we’re seeing steep uptake as GPs start to do more telehealth, close their practices and change the way they work.”
So many e-scripts were issued, Mr Naismith said, that Fred IT was soon receiving feedback that patients were often having difficulty trying to locate the correct script in their phone while at the pharmacy.
In response, an Active Script List integration was added.
“This allows every prescription written electronically to get stored in the cloud,” Mr Naismith said.
……
ADHA’s information on e-prescribing for developers can be found here.
More here:
https://medicalrepublic.com.au/e-scripts-hit-the-big-time/49430
It might have been good to point out that 500,000 eScripts a week is only 10% or so of all the scripts issued and that ASL integration is still somewhat a work in progress.
There are also some issues:
Having problems with e-script repeats? I have the answer
Dr Lilienthal is a GP and medicolegal adviser in Sydney, NSW.
21st July 2021
Are you, like me, having problems with e-prescription repeats?
E-prescribing has been with us for some months now and the vast majority of my patients think it is wonderful and long overdue.
I love it too and jokingly state that we have finally made the great leap forward to 20th century technology.
The problem I encounter most is with repeat prescriptions. They are not actually referred to as repeats, just the number of units left on the prescription after one lot has been dispensed.
When patients tap the link on their screens and open up the tokens, aka QR codes, if there are any repeats, a line appears along the top of the token stating how many items are left.
Each time the pharmacist dispenses a unit, the big computer in the sky is supposed to issue a new link that brings a new token which then displays the reduced number of items/repeats available from the original prescription.
My problem is that quite often, the new link with the reduced number of repeat items, is not sent to the patient’s phone and instead, the following message is displayed:
“This prescription has already been dispensed”.
This means the patient then has to contact me to have their scripts represcribed. This is a pain in the arse and adds to my administrative burden.
So, I recently contacted the Federal Government’s digital health help centre, which is part of the Australian Digital Health Agency that runs the e-scripts scheme, to find out just where the problem lies.
I received the below response. The most salient point is that the correct, patient mobile telephone number must be set in both the practitioner’s electronic medical record AND in the pharmacist’s patient record.
Being set in Best Practice software requires three steps:
1. The electronic medical record needs to be enabled
2. The patient’s mobile telephone number has to be included in the patient’s details on the left-hand side of their general details page AND
3. The same mobile telephone number must be included in the eScript token box at the bottom on the right-hand side of the same patient information page.
More here:
https://www.ausdoc.com.au/opinion/having-problems-escript-repeats-i-have-answer
So while there is progress we are not there just yet for a part of practice that is so fundamental to all clinicians!
Look forward to any tales of war with the system and suggestions for improvement. We must get this right over time!
David.
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