The days of faxing are gone!

Whānau Tahi deliver NZePS to Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand. The service has grown rapidly in the last few years: GPs on the Government e-Prescription Service jumped from 415 in March 2020 to 1038 in March 2022.

The number of eScripts issued went from: 624,300 to 1,559,427.

“Digital innovation is central to unlocking the full potential of our reformed health system. Health technologies are changing all the time. We need to think about how we can use them to work smarter to help all New Zealanders get the healthcare they need.” Andrew Little said.

The New Zealand e-Prescription Service is an electronic health information exchange broker operated by the Ministry of Health. Doctors and other prescribers send prescriptions to the service through a secure channel, and they are then sent on to pharmacies to be dispensed.

Electronic medicines management systems have been shown to significantly reduce the number of patients harmed by medication errors and adverse drug events by:

• Eliminating illegible, ambiguous or incomplete prescriptions.

• Providing a single and comprehensive view of a patient’s current and historical drug record.

• Providing real-time decision support to guide and improve the appropriateness and accuracy of prescribing.

• Improving communication of real-time information between prescribers, pharmacy and nursing.

The changes are expected to be in place by the end of the year, and will be especially helpful for people who find visiting a doctor to get a prescription difficult because they live a long way away or they can’t afford it.

Continue to read the full article here: It’s goodbye to fax machines for prescriptions, says Health Minister | Beehive.govt.nz