Written by Kate McDonald on
17 December 2020.
In September, the federal government announced a new $2 billion COVID-19 health measures package that extended the temporary MBS item numbers for telehealth for a further six months. It also included an extension to the subsidised home delivery of medicines measure, as well as continued free access to the Healthdirect video conferencing system for GPs and SMS messages for electronic prescriptions.
The special arrangement for image-based prescriptions was also extended, as was the end-date for software with fast-tracked (FT) eScript capability. Towards the end of the year, vendors such as MMEx began rolling out ffully conformant versions, and by December, Health Minister Greg Hunt was announcing that item numbers for telehealth would be kept permanently.
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Written by Kate McDonald on
15 December 2020.
Just as big uptake of telehealth marked the first quarter of the eHealth year in Australia, developments in electronic prescribing increased in pace in the second. As part of a range of measures to help get medications to patients quickly and safely, the federal government announced it would fast-track the roll out of electronic prescribing, having made the legislative changes allowing eScripts as a legal alternative to paper late last year.
In March, the Department of Health proposed a development sprint with prescribing and dispensing software vendors to get the majority of GPs and pharmacies with the capability within eight weeks. While our survey of GP software vendors showed a couple would be ready with their fast-tracked versions, there was no way it would reach 80 per cent within two months. The department s agreement to allow image-based prescribing, with photos of scripts emailed or faxed to the pharmacy, proved a bit more