Issue 12
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Electronic Prescriptions to bring advances to Aged Care
ePrescribing is no doubt a hot topic in the aged care industry. The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has called for it to receive priority funding and the
National Health and Hospital Reform Commission (NHHRC)listed it is as one of their recommendations to transform the Australian health care system.
Electronic prescriptions (e-scripts) have now become a reality in the Australian health system and is operating parallel to paper based prescriptions. To help
you better understand ePrescribing, David Freemantle, eRx Script Exchange National Project Director, explains how eRx Script Exchange allows for the transmission
of e-scripts between prescribing doctors and pharmacies, the challenges they face and what ePrescribing means for the aged care industry.
Chris Gray - Managing Director, iCare
eRx (David Freemantle, eRx Script Exchange National Project Director)
The Aged Care sector faces significant challenges in a number of areas, not the least of which are process and technology issues related to medication management.
eRx has developed a technology platform to assist in streamlining the current time-intensive process of requesting new prescriptions for Aged Care residents. Through
the electronic transfer of new script requests between Pharmacies and GPs, the inefficiencies of the current fax-based process can be largely overcome, leading to a
more streamlined, time efficient and reportable process.
Through creating technology interoperability between the 16 major Pharmacy and Prescribing software vendors, eRx significantly enhances the communication and
information flow between GPs, specialists and pharmacies. This process can equally be transferred into the Aged Care industry.
Aged care provides an ideal opportunity for the development and testing of a paperless e-script process, based on the ability of the industry to have policy
developed and funding models identified to cover such developments.
eRx also provides the ability to populate Electronic Health Records (EHRs) with medication information. The future use of the medication data flowing through
eRx onto an electronic health record (EHR) is an area where the health sector and the community and Aged Care industries will benefit significantly.
Challenges
eRx provides initial improvements in medication management, but there are significant further benefits within reach. Many of these challenges still need to
be overcome, including the identification of a business case to provide incentive for stakeholder involvement, the ongoing development and implementation of e-Health
standards to cover such initiatives and the work being undertaken to develop unique identifiers for medications, patient and healthcare professionals. eRx is committed
to work with the Aged Care Industry and its IT suppliers together with NEHTA to meet this challenges.
Progress So Far
eRx Script Exchange has to date has conducted over 200 briefings and meetings with all the stakeholders in medication management including the Aged Care IT Council.
eRx is Australia’s leading provider of e-Prescription services nationally. With more than 850,000 e-scripts already transmitted to eRx and over 110,000 e-scripts
dispensed by eRx, significant progress has already been made. With more than 3,000 pharmacies contracted to use eRx, progress continues at a rapid pace. Sixteen
leading software vendors (including Fred, Amfac, Lots, Medical Director, Best Practice, Genie and Zedmed) have committed contractually to directly integrate and
support eRx in their core desktop software packages and more importantly provide the end user support for eRx. Through these leading IT vendors eRx can reach 99% of
pharmacies and more than 90% of doctors (General Practitioners and specialists).
For further information regarding eRx Script Exchange contact David:
Phone: 1300 700 921
e-Mail: david.freemantle@erx.com.au
 Pdf version for print.
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