Media releases
E-Prescribing delivers for patients, GPs and Pharmacists
6 April 2009
The RACGP welcomes the recent developments in the e-prescribing
arena. Electronic transmission of prescriptions (ETP) and secure
individual electronic health records are at the top of the national
e-health agenda and once adopted should deliver significant benefits to
general practitioners and our patients.
“The RACGP supports e-prescribing, which delivers considerable
benefits to GPs and other medical practitioners” said Dr Chris Mitchell
RACGP President.
“Our patients will benefit from reduced medication errors, ease
of obtaining repeat and refill prescriptions. GPs will save time in the
prescribing process, receive immediate feedback when a script or repeat
has been filled and with a patient's permission, be able to view their
consolidated medication record.”
General practitioners who adopt e-prescribing will be able to:
- Reduce medication errors through electronic downloads by pharmacists
- Reduce script forgery and doctor shopping
- Receive immediate feedback from the Electronic Transmission of Prescriptions exchange when your script has been downloaded at a pharmacy
- Receive the same immediate feedback from the ETP exchange when a repeat/refill script has been downloaded at a pharmacy
- View scripts from other prescribers in a consolidated medication record (where authorised by patients)
- manage medication better for transitions of care (specialists, allied health, community, aged care, hospitals)
- Access medication compliance data (where authorised by patients)
- Reduce red tape
- Save up to a minute per consult when prescribing is managed electronically.
Having access to up to date information during the consultation is
important. With the Medisecure solution it will be possible for
doctors with their patient's approval, to review current medication and
make informed decision about treatment. Additionally, the College
appreciates that the Medisecure system is able to link with existing
systems and that the owners are actively engaging with all providers to
ensure a high quality service.
“The future of e-health is in all providers having access to key
information at the time that care is provided. This initiative is
a great step forward” says Dr Chris Mitchell, President of the RACGP .
Over the last two years one of the ETP exchanges, MediSecure®, has
been trialled in Darwin . The eHealthNT Trial, as it was known, was
partly funded by the Department of Health and Ageing. For more
information on the trial visit http://www.ehealthnt.nt.gov.au/About_Us/Origins_of_eHealthNT/index.aspx
.
Based on the results of this trial, the RACGP is working with
MediSecure® - who provide a secure ETP exchange.
However, there are several models of ETP available and each practitioner
needs to assess which best suits their needs and those of their
patients.
MediSecure deploys proven technologies from both general practice and
community pharmacy to create a secure integrated system. Prescriptions
are transferred from medical practitioners to community pharmacies using
military grade security that has been designed to interface smoothly
with other commercial ETP exchanges.
MediSecure is open to all pharmacy and medical practice software
vendors and most importantly, with no cost to GPs.
MediSecure will be available from April 2009. General practitioners,
specialists and pharmacists wanting more information should visit www.medisecure.com.au. The website also contains a
useful demonstration of the ETP exchange.
