Society Produces Good Dispensing Guidelines To Help With Today's E-Technology

Main Category: IT / Internet / E-mail
Also Included In: Pharmacy / Pharmacist
Article Date: 16 Sep 2009 - 20:00 PDT

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The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has launched Good Dispensing Guidelines for England to help pharmacists focus on the ways IT systems will affect their current practices as the profession moves increasingly towards the electronic pharmacy age.

These new guidelines are for pharmacists using the NHS Connecting for Health Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) Release 2 in England and are available on the professional leadership body website http://www.pharmacyplb.com. A print version is also planned for publication in The Pharmaceutical Journal.

Good Dispensing Guidelines cover the principles of pharmacy practice relevant to the electronic pharmacy, including confidentiality, staff communications and risk management. It includes professional guidance on processes specific to EPS Release 2, such as use of Smartcards, downloading electronic prescriptions, nomination, accuracy checking, submission of electronic reimbursement endorsement messages and business continuity. Areas where pharmacists may need to work with other local stakeholders, such as GPs and PCT staff have also been identified - for example on use of tokens and business continuity arrangements.

RPSGB Health IT pharmacist, Stephen Goundrey-Smith, says; "We hope pharmacists find our new guidelines helpful in their everyday practice. They are not prescriptive in their approach, but flag up the issues pharmacists should consider when implementing EPS Release 2 in their pharmacy."

The new advice should be used in conjunction with NHS Connecting for Health's EPS Release 2 Business Process Guidance, which provides definitive information on EPS business processes available here.

In due course, specific Good Dispensing Guidelines will be issued for pharmacists using the epharmacy services in Scotland and the Welsh electronic transfer of prescriptions (eTP) system (2DRx).

The Good Dispensing Guidelines (England) are available here.They will be further reviewed and developed in the light of experience gained from early implementer sites.

Source
Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain

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