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Encounters
Open a service recording for patient interactions and add clinical items, record progress notes, prescribe medications, review investigations, write referrals and manage recalls.
Medications
This topic covers all Medications Management functionality within Communicare.
Prescribing
Use Communicare to prescribe medications.
Real Time Prescription Monitoring
If your site is integrated with eRx, Communicare can be configured so that whenever a monitored medicine is prescribed and the prescription is about to be saved, the information is validated against the real-time prescription monitoring service using eRx.

Encounters
Open a service recording for patient interactions and add clinical items, record progress notes, prescribe medications, review investigations, write referrals and manage recalls.
- Encounters
  Record patient encounters in Communicare using any one of the following methods.
- Medications
  This topic covers all Medications Management functionality within Communicare.
  - Medication Overview
    Displays all Prescription, Administer and Supply medication information for the selected patient.
  - Medication Management Configuration
    Medications management changed significantly in V21.2 and later. Before you upgrade from V19.2 and earlier, consider the configuration options available for medications management in Communicare.
  - Prescribing
    Use Communicare to prescribe medications.
    - Write Prescriptions
      Use the Add Medication window, Write a Prescription tab when you want to write a prescription, print it and give it to a patient to fill outside your health service.
    - Create Medication Orders
      If you are a doctor, create a Medication Order for medication to be administered or supplied at your health service. If you are a nurse or health worker, create a medication order for the associated verbal or written order from an authorised provider.
    - Create Medication Orders from Prescriptions
      If you have written a prescription that is part of a Medication Request, and you need to supply some of the medication to the patient now to cover the period until the the pharmacy order is fulfilled and arrives for the patient, you can create a medication order from the prescription.
    - Finalise Prescriptions
      In Communicare V20.2 and later, you can finalise prescriptions to generate a script number without printing out prescriptions. If required, you can then print the prescriptions.
    - Medication Requests
      In Communicare V20.2 and later, you can create medication requests. Medication requests combine multiple medications on one prescription.
    - Print Prescriptions
      When you close the clinical record, you are prompted to finalise any prescriptions that haven't been finalised or printed that day.
    - Add Adverse Reactions
      Record an adverse reaction for a reaction a patient has to a substance of any sort.
    - Decision Support
      Communicare provides prescribing decision support based on clinical items with a valid ICPC-2 PLUS code and uses pharmaceutical content sourced from the MIMS drug database.
    - Stop a Medication
      You can discontinue a regular or once-off medication because the patient no longer takes this medication for whatever reason.
    - Stop Multiple Medications
      You can stop multiple current or expired regular and once-off medications simultaneously.
    - Repeat medications
      Create a repeat for medication orders or represcribe regular and once off prescriptions.
    - Represcribe multiple medications
      You can represcribe multiple current, regular and once off medications simultaneously and change the duration for all medications if required. You can also represcribe expired regular medications.
    - Make Medications Regular or Once-off
      If you decide that a patient should continue taking a once-off medication that you have previously prescribed, you can change it to a regular medication. Similarly, if you want to stop a regular medication after the current prescription, you can change it to a once-off medication.
    - Adjust Medications
      In V20.2 and later, you can adjust the duration of a medication. Use this feature to change the expiry date of the medication shown in Communicare when you want a patient to take more or less of a medication that has already been prescribed.
    - Delete Medications
      Delete a medication only if it was prescribed in error. Instead, if you no longer want a patient to take a prescribed medication, stop that medication.
    - Choose Streamlined Authority
      When a PBS medication is listed under the streamlined authority rules, a streamlined authority approval number is automatically added to a prescription.
    - Drug Browser
      In the Drug Browser, you can browse product information from the MIMS Pharmaceutical database.
    - Extemporaneous Preparations (Drug Recipes)
      Use Extemporaneous Preparations to define drug recipes for display in the drug browser and for use when prescribing medications.
    - Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions (ETP)
      Communicare can be configured for electronic transfer of prescriptions to a central repository.
    - Verbal Orders
      Verbal Orders are available when the Medication Management module is enabled.
    - Real Time Prescription Monitoring
      If your site is integrated with eRx, Communicare can be configured so that whenever a monitored medicine is prescribed and the prescription is about to be saved, the information is validated against the real-time prescription monitoring service using eRx.
      - Enable and use RTPM
        After you have enabled RTPM, when you prescribe a medication, the RTPM service is contacted when you attempt to save the prescription.
      - RTPM errors
        If system is not correctly configured, you may see one of the following RTPM error messages.
  - Medication History
    Use Medication History to record current medications for a patient of your health service that your patient is taking but which may have been prescribed in hospital or at another service.
  - Administer and Supply Medication
    In Communicare V20.1 and later, the separate Supply and Administer functions are merged into a single Administer and Supply function. Use Administer and Supply to record the administration or supply of a medication, or both administration and supply of a medication during the current service.
  - Imprest Management
    Imprest Management allows management of the Imprest drug list and the Imprest orders.
  - Consolidated Orders
    Consolidated orders are groups of medication requests that have been requested from an external pharmacy.
- Clinical Support

Real Time Prescription Monitoring

If your site is integrated with eRx, Communicare can be configured so that whenever a monitored medicine is prescribed and the prescription is about to be saved, the information is validated against the real-time prescription monitoring service using eRx.

For sites in Victoria, alerts from Safescript are displayed in Communicare. For further details about Safescript, see the health.vic website.

For other states, if a site is integrated with eRx, monitored medications flow to the real-time prescription monitoring system via eRx and results can be viewed in an RTPM Notification Client app, outside of Communicare.

The medications monitored differ by state:

S8 medications are always monitored
Some S4 medications are monitored

To use real-time prescription monitoring, ensure that the following criteria are met:

An HPI-O is selected for each Encounter Place where prescribing occurs.
All prescribing providers have a Provider Number entered against each Encounter Place.

Note: Real-Time Prescription Monitoring functionality is not available in the Offline Client.

Real Time Prescription Monitoring in NSW

SafeScript NSW is now available for prescribers and pharmacists statewide.

To get started, prescribers and pharmacists in Hunter New England and Central Coast will need to:

Register for SafeScript NSW.
Request Communicare Support to enable SafeScript NSW in Communicare.
Install the SafeScript NSW/RTPM Notification Client app.
Complete the accredited eLearning modules.
Learn about the support available from SafeScript NSW, including a dedicated 24/7 clinical advice line, technical support, and enhancements to local HealthPathways

If you're already registered, log in and start using SafeScript NSW. To learn more, visit the SafeScript NSW website.

15 November 2023