Emergency Prescription Provision for Displaced Persons – Where is Australia Up To?

The following report in Health Data Management prompted me to think how would Australia cope if 500,000 people were evacuated from part of one of our major cities.

Site Offers Rx Info for Wildfire Evacuees

(October 25, 2007) A new emergency prescription history program has been activated and updated to enable physicians to access information for residents displaced by the California wildfires.

The In Case of Emergency Prescription history service and secure Web portal were created earlier this year by several national pharmacy chains and electronic prescription network vendor SureScripts, Alexandria, Va. The program was designed to offer clinicians access to patient pharmacy records during an emergency, building on the KatrinaHealth.org Web site that was created to access electronic medical information for patients affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Clinicians using electronic prescribing software certified to work on the SureScripts network can access the drug data via the Rx History icon in the application. Physicians without certified prescribing software can register to access the information at icerx.org. Physicians must have several identifying pieces of information about a patient to access their medication history from the site.

Continue reading here

http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/html/news/NewsStory.cfm?articleId=15951

It would seem that, given there is a record held at Medicare Australia(MA), of all the medications provided under the PBS scheme – which would cover the vast majority of important medications each Australian in taking a similar portal could be developed for Australian GPs who find themselves having to support displaced patients.

Given NEHTA is working with MA to deliver identifiers for both clinical providers and patients there seems to be little barrier to this becoming a reality with a little planning and work.

I wonder will anyone have the wit to ‘just get it done’. A lot of people might be very grateful if we have an event like Cyclone Tracy or Cyclone Larry again!

David.