PHARMACISTS are facing an increased administrative burden as a result of the rollout of general practitioners' telehealth consultation, Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) National President, Dr Chris Freeman, says.
Freeman raised the issue during a PSA-hosted COVID-19 webinar on Wed night, saying the increasing volume of prescriptions being presented in non-traditional forms was fuelling frustration within the profession.
"We think it's a really good thing to enable GPs to connect with patients over the mechanism, and [we] are fully supportive of it," Freeman said.
"Unfortunately, one of the things we've seen as a downside to that is the demand on the community pharmacy sector, as many pharmacies are having to deal with these types of prescriptions coming in.
"I've had a report from a couple of pharmacists that around 60-80% of their prescription volume on Tue was through faxes, through emails or pictures of their patients' prescriptions.
"The administrative burden of workflow issues that have come out of this have been really problematic.
"We have raised these now directly with the Department of Health, and have done so for the last couple of weeks when we were predicting this might happen.
"I sense the frustration in the community around this, knowing that the initiative itself is a good one, but the flow-down affects for community pharmacy have been a challenge."
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