Anglesea home to first electronic prescription

Anglesea Medical and Anglesea Pharmacy were both recently part of the first electronic prescription dispensed in primary care to be transmitted in Australia.

Like telehealth, electronic prescriptions were a concept that was fast-tracked with the emergence of coronavirus.

However, the technology for electronic prescriptions still required a safe digital communications channel before it could commence.

Anglesea Pharmacy owner Jason Bratuskins was the pharmacist who dispensed the script.

He said the process was both safe and efficient.

“It’s all about totally paperless prescriptions. The patient goes to the doctor, the doctor writes a prescription, and the patient can either get the prescription as they do today or there’s the option to get a paperless prescription.

“It’s called ‘paper optional’, and the patient can receive this prescription via SMS or email. They then go to the pharmacy and the pharmacy scans that barcode (from the SMS or email) and that is then downloaded, and we dispense that. Any repeats that are generated for that item will be sent back to the patient via SMS, so there’s no paper involved. It’s an extremely secure process.”

Anglesea Medical’s Dr David Corbet sent the prescription and praised the efficiency of the process.

“The process is as simple as writing the prescription in the usual manner and, with the consent of the patient, selecting that the prescription is generated as an electronic prescription,” he said.

Mr Bratuskins said he was pleased the pharmacy and the town could be part of the milestone.

“It was a privilege for Anglesea to be part of this and paving the way for truly paperless prescriptions. It’s a success because it’s now starting to roll out throughout Australia.”

Mr Bratuskins said Anglesea Pharmacy has continued to allow customers to use the technology since they dispensed the first receipt.

“It’s still low volume but we’re getting (electronic) prescriptions through every day.

“It’s generally run okay. As with IT projects, there are always things that come up, but it seems to be going pretty well.”