Medicines safety is critical and involves everything from proper prescribing, dispensing, and administering medications, to ongoing monitoring and patient education. Medication safety tools have become essential in modern healthcare, supporting healthcare providers with the technology and systems you need to make safer, more informed decisions in managing patient medications.
Medicines safety is a broad term that encompasses strategies and practices aimed at minimising harm from medication use. From proper prescribing and dispensing to safe administration on monitoring medicine use, digital technologies are helping to ensure patients receive the right medication at the right time and in the right way, according to their preferences.
Both prescribers and dispensers of medications can follow a simple strategy to achieve a strong medicine safety profile. The diagram below summarises the three primary areas of focus, all of which are enabled by digital health.
Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions (ETP) supports the safe and secure transfer of prescription information between a prescriber (doctor, specialist, dentist, optometrist, nurse practitioner etc.) and a community pharmacy using an electronic system known as a Prescription Exchange Service (PES).
The current PES system is available through eRx script exchange.
Electronic prescriptions, or electronic prescribing for clinicians, are a way of administering medications without a traditional paper script. An electronic prescription is digitally transferred from the practice clinical information software to the patient directly (via SMS or email) and then presented to a pharmacy for dispensing.
Prescribers first need to register with the Prescription Exchange Service (PES), which is through eRX. After confirming registration and clinical software configuration, the prescriber can then choose to issue a script electronically. Instead of printing a script, the practice software will send a QR code to the patient’s mobile phone via SMS or via email.
The patient then presents this at the pharmacy, where it is scanned and enters the pharmacy dispensing software and is dispensed. The Active Script List provides patients with the option to manage multiple electronic prescription tokens in a consolidated list. See below for more details on benefits of the Active Script List.
Electronic Prescribing and using ETP can offer many benefits to both the patient, prescriber and dispenser including:
Healthcare providers can access a patient’s My Health Record, which generates several consolidated views and can assist with reconciling patient medicines via the:
The Active Script List or My Script List (MySL) is an optional service which allows patients and their chosen healthcare providers to connect to a list of all the available prescriptions that haven’t been dispensed yet. Patients must first register for an Active Script List at their local pharmacy and are in control of which healthcare providers (prescribers and dispensers) have ongoing or temporary (24hr) access to their prescription list and can also view it themselves using a medication management app such as the My Health Record mobile app.
To set up an Active Script List, patients will need to consent to the service in collaboration with either their doctor or pharmacist. This process is called ‘assisted registration’ and provides people with the opportunity to review the terms and conditions of the service and make an informed choice about whether it is right for them.
General practitioners or prescribers of medication who have the latest conformance profile in their clinical information system can request consent from patients to have access to view a patients’ Active Script List. Only pharmacists can currently register a patient’s Active Script List for the first time.
A list of the latest clinical software systems that are conformant can be found here.
SafeScript NSW provides real-time information about a patient’s prescription history for certain high-risk medicines to support clinical decision making and patient safety. It’s available to both prescribers and dispensers of medications.
Prescribers across NSW can also have access to online management of approvals via a SafeScript NSW account. They can see all their active approvals, including those within the organisations they are attached to. Eligible users will be able to withdraw, cancel and exit any active approvals and prescribers will be able to renew approvals already held by them.
Prescribers can also enable SafeScript NSW in their clinical software, provided it’s conformant. This allows health practitioners to receive pop-up notifications on their desktop when a potentially high-risk scenario is detected, offering real-time information at the point of care.
Healthcare providers can use the transitional eNRMC products for prescribing, dispensing and supply of PBS medicines for Residential Aged Care patients. eNRMCs offer prescribers and dispensers a safe, flexible, more coordinated and secure way to manage multiple medications via an online portal.
For more information about Electronic National Residential Medication Charts, visit Digital Health Solutions for Residential Aged Care.
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