Electronic prescribing

Bp Premier Jade Service Pack 3 with electronic prescribing has been released now. You will need to upgrade to SP3 or later to use electronic prescribing.

After your practice has upgraded to Jade SP3 and enabled electronic prescriptions, the option becomes available from the patient record. More information is also available in Frequently asked questions about electronic prescribing.

With electronic prescribing, the process of creating the prescription record is exactly the same. However, when printing the script to give to the patient, you can now choose to send the patient an 'electronic prescription token' by SMS, email, or printed to blank paper, instead of printing the script to templated paper.

You can either print a script to paper as normal, or send as an electronic prescription, but not both. Either option will mark the scripts as printed if successful.

You can cancel an incorrect script if unfilled, and resend script tokens that have been lost by the patient. You can also opt to send the record of the electronic prescription to My Health Record like a printed script.

Australian Digital Health Agency electronic prescribing courses

The Australian Digital Health Agency has created eLearning courses on electronic prescribing for prescribers and despensers, covering the following topics:

  • Introducing electronic prescriptions
  • Using electronic prescriptions
  • Preparing for electronic prescriptions.

The courses have been accredited by the Australian Pharmacy Council, Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine. Practitioners completing the courses can claim CPD or PDP credits or points upon successful completion of each module.

Access the eLearning course from the ADHA online training website.

Send an electronic prescription

  1. Select Rx from the patient record and create a prescription as per usual. You can also send an existing repeat Rx by electronic script. See Add or cease Rx for more information.
  2. Tick the check box next to the drug that you want to send an electronic prescription token for. You can select multiple scripts; all selected scripts will be sent by the same method.
  3. Select the method for sending the electronic prescription token from the Token: drop-down menu.
  4. Select token send method

    The options are:

    • Paper — Prints the token to a blank sheet of paper. The paper cannot be a preprinted template.
    • SMS (default) — Sends the token to the phone number recorded in the patient demographics.
    • SMS (Other) — Sends the token to a phone number entered by the prescriber, for example, to a carer. Bp Premier will remember the number entered here for the duration of the current visit only.
    • Email (default) — Sends the token to the email address recorded in the patient demographics.
    • Email (Other) — Sends the token to an alternate email address entered by the prescriber.

    NOTE  If printing the token to paper, you may wish to explain that the printed token is an evidence of prescription only, and not the actual script they may be used to receiving.

  5. Click eScript to send.
  6. If you have prescribed a schedule 8 drug, you will be prompted to re-enter your Bp Premier password. Re-enter your password and click OK. See Sending schedule 8 electronic prescriptions for more information.
  7. If you selected 'SMS (Other)' or 'Email (Other)', Bp Premier will prompt to enter the phone number or email address to send to. Enter a number with no spaces or an email address, and click Continue.
  8. Send escript token to other phone number

If the electronic prescription is successfully received by the electronic prescription exchange, Bp Premier will show a success alert.

Escript successfully sent to exchange

If the electronic prescription was not successfully sent, or the attempt times out, Bp Premier will report an error.

Failed to send the escript

IMPORTANT  If an error occurs sending the electronic prescription, Bp Premier will automatically print the script to preprinted paper by default and mark the script as printed.

If sending by SMS or email, the number or email address will receive a message with a hyperlink in it only a few seconds after being sent from Bp Premier. The receiver must click the hyperlink on their device to view the token, which will contain a QR code that can be scanned at or forwarded to the pharmacy.

Sending schedule 8 electronic prescriptions

You will be able to prescribe schedule 8 drugs as electronic prescriptions, as there are no restrictions on medications that can be prescribed as an electronic prescription. However, you will be required to re-enter your usual Bp Premier password when prescribing schedule 8 drugs this way.

Amend an electronic prescription

Changes to script details, such as the number of tablets or an authority addition, will not be made to the original token. If you need to make changes to a script sent by an electronic prescription token, you will need to cancel the original token, recreate the script, and send a new token.

Preview an electronic prescription

You can preview an electronic script before sending the token to the patient.

  1. Select the Token: send method for the script.
  2. Right-click the script you want to preview and select Preview eScript.
  3. Select to preview an electronic script

  4. Check the information is correct and click Send.
  5. Preview of electronic script record

Cancel an electronic prescription

  1. Go to the Past Prescriptions section on the left hand side.
  2. Right-click on the electronic prescription you want to cancel and select Cancel escript. The token will be removed from the electronic prescription exchange if it has not yet been filled.

The patient will not receive any automatic notification that the electronic prescription token has been cancelled. If the patient clicks on the hyperlink in the token SMS or email, the link will no longer work and a token cancelled message will be displayed.

Resend an electronic prescription

  1. Go to the Past Prescriptions section on the left hand side.
  2. Right-click on the electronic prescription you want to resend and select Resend token.
  3. Resend an escript token

  4. You can change the original token send method if necessary, including printing the token.
  5. Confirm resend of escript token

  6. Click Send.

Troubleshooting

If you experience malformed or missing QR codes in the electronic prescription token, you will need to reinstall the QR code font on the server or client on which the problem occurred.

The following is an example of a missing QR code:

Bad or missing QR code in token

  1. Open the Bp Premier Downloads page in your browser.
  2. Scroll down and open the Utility: Bp Fonts dropdown.
  3. Click Download. The file BP_Fonts.exe will be downloaded to your default downloads directory.
  4. Double-click the file to run the font install. You may need Windows administrator access to run the file.
  5. Test that the QR code now prints successfully for the electronic prescription.