United real-time system call
October 8, 2015
AUSTRALIA’S peak pharmacy,
medicine and consumer health
organisations have today united
in a joint call for the “urgent
implementation of a national
system for the Electronic Recording
and Reporting of Controlled Drugs”.
The Pharmacy Guild, Society of
Hospital Pharmacists of Australia,
Australian Medical Association,
Royal Australian College of
Physicians, Pharmaceutical Society
of Australia, Medical Software
Industry Association and the
Consumers Health Forum have
written to all state and territory
health ministers as well as Sussan
Ley, Federal Health Minister, saying
that the absence of such a system
means “avoidable deaths involving
prescription medicines continue to
occur at an alarming rate”.
Coroners across the country have
repeatedly called for the urgent
implementation of a real-time
prescription monitoring system,
while the so-called ERRCD would
provide clinicians with a crucial
tool, enabling them to better
address the serious problem of
addiction to controlled drugs.
The ERRCD is currently at
various stages of implementation
in different jurisdictions after
Commonwealth funding was
provided in 2010 as part of the Fifth
Community Pharmacy Agreement.
“However this roll out has been
extremely slow due to a range of
technical issues,” the letter states,
noting that at this stage only
Tasmania has such a system in place.
“We call on all jurisdictions to
agree on a clear implementation
plan and timeline for a national
ERRCD system at the next COAG
Health Council meeting, and to
remove any roadblocks to achieving
this outcome,” the letter states.
All signatories to the joint letter
have promised to “stand ready to
work in partnership” to ensure
the national roll out of the system,
which would collect information
on all prescribing and dispensing
events related to controlled drugs
consistent with state and territory
legislation.
The proposed ERRCD would
have a secure web portal for both
prescribers and pharmacists,
with capacity to integrate with
pharmacy dispensing systems and
prescribing software to give access
to the controlled drugs history for a
particular patient.
It would also allow state and
territory health departments access
to monitor and manage the system,
and to direct responses as required
to alerts raised by the software.
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