Medication Summary

The Medication Summary displays all active medications, including once-off or regular medications prescribed to the patient, supplied, administered, or added to their medication history.

If prescribing is enabled for your organisation, and you have Medication View and Prescribing rights, you can repeat, edit or stop medications from the Medication Summary.

The Medication Summary icon changes according to its content, but is not affected by Medication History items.
  • - white background, there are no medications on this tab
  • - red background, some regular medications have expired
  • - green background, there are medications listed and no regular medications have expired
Tip: To jump to the Medication Summary from the main toolbar, select Medication > Medication Summary or press SHIFT+CTRL+F9.

Current and regular medications codes

A code is displayed to the left of the medications listed, indicating the status of that medication.
Tip: The codes are also described in the legend at the bottom of the Medication Summary tab.
  • Regular medication iconRegular - any medication that the patient would be expected to take continually and set as Regular Medication when prescribing, generally for a chronic disease. Regular medications are always listed on the Medication Summary until they are explicitly stopped because they are no longer clinically required.
  • Once off medicationOnce Off - any medication for acute clinical presentations that the patient will take until the prescribed course is complete and set as Once off/Short Course when prescribing. Once off medications are no longer displayed on the Medication Summary after they have passed their until date because they are no longer current.
  • Stopped - stopped regular medication, either manually because it is no longer clinically required, or automatically because a new regular medication is prescribed that matches the initial medication.

    Stopped medications are labelled <Stopped> and displayed in grey text.

    Manually stopped medications are displayed on the Medication Summary until they reach their until date. Automatically stopped medications remain listed in the Medication Summary for the rest of the day and are then removed.

  • Expired regular medication iconExpired - expired regular medication that has passed its until date. Expired regular medication should be represcribed or stopped. It remains listed in the Medication Summary until it is stopped.
  • RxE - medication prescribed elsewhere.
  • Verbal order, unreviewed - unreviewed verbal orders.
  • Verbal order, reviewed - reviewed verbal orders.
  • - comments are included in the Comments field of the prescription.
  • Medication History - all medication records included in the patient's clinical record using Medication History. These records are prefixed with <History>. You cannot prescribe, print or issue repeats for historical scripts.

Other information

The following information is also displayed for medications where relevant:
  • Script No. - displays the type of medication, one of:
    Example medication types in the Medication Summary
    • For prescriptions, after the prescription is finalised, the #script_number is displayed
    • For medication orders, Order is displayed
    • For medication history items, History is displayed
  • Date - the date on which the medication was prescribed, ordered or added as a history item
  • Until - the date calculated from the duration, after which the medication expires in Communicare. The duration is calculated from the total number of packs together with repeats, assuming that each pack lasts 1 month, to a maximum of 12 months.
    • For regular medications, if the until date specified when the medication was prescribed has passed, the background of the Until date field is coloured red.
    • For regular medications with fewer than 28 days left on the prescription, the background of the Until date field is coloured gold to remind you to represcribe the medication to ensure that the patient has enough supply of the medication.
    • For once-off and short course medications with fewer than 28 days left, the background of the Until date field is coloured gold.
    • Once off or short course medications are removed from the Medication Summary when the until date has passed.
  • Repeat, Edit, View, Stop - links to actions you can perform on the medications
  • Current/Regular Medication - the medication prescribed, ordered or recorded as a history item. For more information about the layout, see Active Ingredient Prescribing.
  • Dosage - the dosage or DAA specified for a prescription.
  • Order Instructions - the order instructions specified for a medication order.
  • OTC - over the counter medication.
  • RxE - medication prescribed elsewhere.
  • Last Supplied and Qty - the date on which the medication was last supplied from imprest and the number and type of units that were supplied
  • Last Administered and Qty- the date on which the medication was last administered to the patient and the number and type of units that were administered.

Displaying all medications

The full list of a patient's medication for all time is displayed on the Detail tab. This list includes expired once off and short course medications and stopped regular medications.

To display all medications, in the Detail tab, set View Clinical Items by Class and select the Rx - Prescription tab.