Northern Ireland’s electronic prescribing and eligibility system
Project Manager Pat Davis highlights the goals that guided the
development of Northern Ireland’s electronic prescribing and eligibility
system and explains how it will operate.
ABSTRACT
Northern Ireland’s Department of Health, Social Services and Public
Safety is developing an electronic prescribing and eligibility system (EPES)
to support prescribing and dispensing processes. A search for the best fully
paperless model left one important, unresolved hurdle to overcome: a
cost-effective means by which patients can identify themselves to the
dispensing pharmacist as being eligible to collect the prescribed
medication.
This has been resolved by adopting a paper-light approach in the transfer
of prescriptions from the prescriber to the dispensing pharmacist that makes
use of two-dimensional barcodes. Trials of the new system are expected to be
under way in 10% of all community pharmacies in Northern Ireland by July
this year.
Br J Healthcare Comput Info Manage 2007; 24(1): 12-14. |
