Medication Requests

In Communicare V20.2 and later, you can create medication requests. Medication requests combine multiple medications on one prescription.

Medication requests can be sent to a pharmacy for dispensing. Instead of printing individual PBS scripts, you can print a medication request which is the equivalent of a single batch prescription. If you stock your patient's prescription medications at your health service, or are the health provider for a remote site that stocks prescription medications for your patients, you can use medication requests to help manage the patient's medications.

Tip: Medication requests replace the separate Health Centre Prescription (HCP) feature.

Note: Medication requests are not enabled by default. Communicare Administrators can enable medication requests in System Parameters. For more information, see System Parameters - Prescription Forms.

To display the current medication request, in the patient's clinical record, on the Summary > Medication Summary tab, click Medication Request icon Medication Requests.

The Medication Requests window shows the current medication request, including any DAA medication groups, and also lists all superseded medication requests.
Example Medication Requests summary window

Example Medication Requests summary window

The following details are displayed for the medication request:

Encounter Place - the encounter place for the current service or the selected pickup location for patient-specific inventory
Created - the date on which the medication request was created
Until - the until date of each medication
Created by - name of the provider who created the medication request
Status - one of the following:
- Active - the current medication request
- Stopped - any superseded medication requests
- Cancelled - any medication request that has been cancelled

If you need to check the medications included in a previous medication request, or check the contents of a previous DAA medication group, expand the required medication request.

Medications in the medication request display the usual medication icons.

Table 1. Medication request - medication icons
Icon	Description
	Identifies once off or short course medications
	Identifies regular medications
	Identifies a medication group included in a DAA. A separate medication group is created for each DAA type: Blister Pack Sachet Dosette Box Bag (OP) Packet The medication group number is incremented each time you adjust the medications included in that DAA type, that is, each time you add, delete, update, repeat, represcribe or stop a medication included in that DAA. To see previous medication groups, open the superseded medication requests.