South Western Sydney PHN assists practices to implement Electronic medication management.
Prescriptions play a significant role in healthcare in Australia. On average, more than 200 million scripts are dispensed yearly in Australia.
Manual prescribing and dispensing these prescriptions requires repeated data input, manual signing, lots of paper and restricts practitioners from fully utilising clinical support software.
Patients are inconvenienced by delays in obtaining prescriptions, issues when prescriptions are lost and even confusion over exactly what medications they should be taking and when.
Nearly one in three unplanned hospital admissions in those aged over 75 years is associated with prescribing errors. Hence, preventable medication errors cost around $380 million per year in the public hospital system.
In some sectors, electronic medication processes are mature, but as further electronic medication initiatives gather pace, such as medication history lists and medication profiles, more comprehensive medication information will be available to assist in reducing medication errors.
Electronic medication management will enable point-to-point (practice-to-pharmacy) communication to:
- Enable the practice to check the validity of a lost prescription
- Save time by not having to re-issue a lost prescription
- Enable the practice to verify if a prescription has been filled and dispensed
- Allow practitioners to access accurate and up-to-date information about the patient’s medications and medication history as eHealth initiatives roll out
- Save time by not having to manage discrepancies on the prescription
- Save time by reducing queries from pharmacies that may have problems deciphering the hand-written information on the prescription.
Need help with electronic medication management?
The Digital Health team at South Western Sydney PHN are ready to help practices implement digital health initiatives.
Ph: 4632 3000
Email: digitalhealth@swsphn.com.au