VICTORIA is set to be the first State to rollout electronic prescriptions after the Australian Digital Health Agency (ADHA) announced plans to extend its Communities of Interest test program to include the entire state.
Since the first e-script was dispensed in May more than 100,000 prescriptions have been issued using the token system.
Pharmacy Guild of Australia Victorian Branch President, Anthony Tassone, welcomed the decision to expand the program state-wide following the success of its lockdown rollout in Melbourne last month.
"With more doctors practising telehealth particularly in Victoria during the COVID restrictions -- there has been a significant demand on pharmacies to dispense prescriptions from a digital image of a prescription (e.g. fax or email prescription) which has placed a higher administrative burden on pharmacy staff," he said.
"Also, under Victorian law a fax or email prescription is not a legal order for supply for all medicines such as Schedule 8s and benzodiazepines where the original prescription is still required.
"E-prescriptions help address this not only during the COVID pandemic, but also have other benefits for patients in the longer term with not having to handle hard copy paper prescriptions.
"Whilst there have been some benefits with the introduction of e-prescription tokens in Melbourne and now across Victoria -- the sooner we can introduce the Active Script List form of e-scripts the better as there will be even more potential benefits for a larger group of patients, particularly those who take multiple and long term medications.
"It is essential that local general practices work with their local pharmacy colleagues to ensure they are enabled and ready to dispense e-prescriptions, and ultimately and most importantly it is still the patient's choice whether they receive an electronic prescription.
"If pharmacies need assistance in getting enabled and ready to dispense electronic prescription -- they should contact their dispensary software provider."
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