Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions (ETP)

Communicare can be configured for electronic transfer of prescriptions to a central repository.

If ETP is configured, whenever a PBS Prescription is printed, the information is sent off to a central repository and a barcode is added to the printed prescription. When the patient goes to collect the prescription, any pharmacist participating in ETP can then scan this barcode to download the information about the prescription electronically from the central repository. This can greatly reduce errors with reading and interpreting printed prescriptions.

Note: Rural Prescribing and Offline (Data Sync) Clients do not support ETP.
To enable ETP with Communicare, complete the following steps:
  1. Register at least one clinician in your organisation as a Prescriber at the eRx (www.erx.com.au) website. eRx is the organisation that provides the software that Communicare integrates with to enable ETP. With the registration, although individual prescriber details are entered, it allows ETP to be used by anyone in the same organisation.
  2. Contact Communicare Support to confirm that registration has been initiated and arrange for ETP to be enabled. Communicare Support will add the ETP server details to File > System Parameters > Web Services tab.
  3. Check that a locality is set for your encounter place. For Communicare to be able to transfer prescriptions to ETP, your encounter place must include a locality in File > Reference Tables > Encounter Place.
    Note: If ETP is enabled for your encounter place and no locality is set for your encounter place, or for your organisation in File > Organisation Maintenance, you can't save new prescriptions.

Prescription Print

The Consent to send to My Health Record value for each medication item is not sent until the ETP prescription is printed. See Medication Details.

Stopping Medications

When you stop or delete a medication with a barcode, Communicare sends an update to the repository to cancel that medication. On this message, if consent is attained to send the medication item to My Health Record, ItemViewConsent is set to Yes; if any ItemViewConsent elements are set to Yes, ViewConsent is also set to Yes.