3 minute read
Dr Sally Cockburn
Dr Sa y Cockburn GIVES HER UNIQUE VIEW ON ALL MATTERS MEDICAL
E-SCRIPTS — PRESCRIPTIONS WITHOUT PAPER Late in my medical career, having become a patient with conditions requiring regular medication, I now fully appreciate the scourge that is paper-based prescriptions.
Medicine is a world of contrasts. For example, we embrace new technology that creates incredible robotics and fi bre opticsbased instruments, which can dive deep into the body to diagnose or treat some conditions, allowing quick recovery that would previously have meant long hospital stays and even longer scars.
However, the health professions seem excruciatingly slow in the uptake of technology, especially around record keeping, including prescriptions. Until now.
The medical establishment has long argued the reason we are slow to embrace records technology is all about protecting patient privacy and how we can’t trust technology.
This is now wearing a bit thin since so many of us do our banking and manage our lives online. The world has moved on, and while more and more people embrace smartphones and the internet for business and communications, it always struck me as odd that we doctors can still be found handwriting prescriptions. I ask you, where else will you still see actual carbon copy duplicates?
My experience as a patient has taught me how annoying it is to have to put my paper scripts in “that special place”, only to completely forget where that place is or that it’s slipped off its magnet down beside the fridge. I may be a doctor but I can’t prescribe my own drugs, so I, too, am as infuriated as you to be at the mercy of paper-based scripts. (OK , I have recently learned to leave my paper scripts at the pharmacy and use the app to remind me where I am at.)
But last year, while we were scrambling to fi nd solutions in our COVID world, something seismic changed in medical management in Australia. After many years of careful planning and negotiating, the government, medicine and pharmacy shook hands
AD (well, bumped elbows) and the electronic prescriptions program started rolling out around the country. The birth missed out on the fanfare it deserved, but this is a huge move forward for the benefi t of us, the people who rely on medication. Currently not all doctors and pharmacies have moved to digital prescriptions. The rollout takes time, but it won’t be long. Interestingly, it is one of the few positives to come from the pandemic. So how do/will they work? Well, there is no diff erence in how your doctor goes about prescribing your medication or how your pharmacist will dispense it. The big diff erence is that you no longer need to schlep a paper script around. You can elect to receive the script by text message or email that contains a
link and a QR code (those weird, squiggly, scannable boxed symbol thingees that resemble an MC Escher print). Your pharmacist can scan the code and dispense your meds as usual. I hear you: “What if I lose my phone?” If you’ve transferred the code to your pharmacist they will still have the record. As will your doctor. OK, “What if I don’t have a smartphone?” Easy, you can elect to have your doctor email the digital script directly to the participating pharmacy of your choice. Oh, and don’t worry, paper scripts are still an option if you prefer, but don’t reject the idea of an e-script just because it’s new te chnology. Hmm, that only leaves pens and odd socks to languish in that “special place”. Any ideas?
