THE Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) says the increasing prevalence of some online services is fragmenting care and poses a serious risk to patient safety.
President of the RACGP Dr Bastian Seidel said patients should not be able to access prescriptions, referrals and/or medical certificates through online systems unless they were being provided by the patient's usual GP or a GP in the patient's usual general practice.
"The big risk with online services performed outside of the usual patient--doctor relationship is that they fragment care and do not provide continuous, comprehensive general practice care to patients," Seidel said.
"They provide patients with prescriptions, referrals or medical certificates without sufficient understanding of their medical history and social context, which is a safety issue and may also affect quality of care.
"There is also no guarantee the patient's usual GP will be informed following a patient accessing an online service, which again leads to fragmentation of medical records."
Go to racgp.org.au for more.
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