Electronic Prescribing

Introduction

Electronic prescriptions offer a convenient alternative to paper prescriptions for patients. This page provides guidance to software developers who wish to build products that support electronic prescribing. 

Pre-requisites

Conformance to the Healthcare Identifier Service (HI) is a prerequisite for prescribing and dispensing systems to participate in electronic prescribing. 

Electronic Prescribing Conformance Process

The Australian Digital Health Agency (the Agency) offers a range of support services including consultations and information sessions. For support with the Agency's conformance requirements or technical specifications, please email help@digitalhealth.gov.au(link sends email).

Follow the steps below to get started.

Step 1: Achieve Healthcare Identifiers (HI) Service conformance

If your product is not yet conformant with the HI Service, please develop this capability first. For instructions please go to the following page: 

• Healthcare Identifiers Service (HI)

If your product is already HI Service conformant please proceed to step 2. 

Step 2: Understand Electronic Prescribing

To understand electronic prescribing, please read the Electronic Prescribing Technical Framework documents detailing the Solution Architecture, Conformance Assessment Scheme and Conformance Profile located here:

• Electronic Prescribing - Technical Framework Documents v3.6

The Conformance Test Specification is located here:

• Electronic Prescribing - Conformance Test Specifications v3.0.5

Once you have read these documents, proceed to step 3. 

Step 3: Your Product’s Role in Electronic Prescribing

Identify the functions your product will carry out in the electronic prescribing process and whether it needs to connect to the National Prescription Delivery Service (NPDS) to enable end-to-end electronic prescription transactions.

Most prescribing and dispensing Clinical Information Systems (CIS) will connect to the NPDS.

Hospital CIS solutions may provide their own direct PDS solution.

To use the Active Script List (ASL) your system will need to connect to the NPDS. The ASL is not available in a direct PDS model.

Step 4: Finalise the conformance process

Complete the conformance process with the NPDS and the Agency. The process varies depending on the type of product you are developing. It typically takes 20 business days to complete the process with the Agency. This time is in addition to product development, testing, self-assessment, and the observed testing session with the NPDS. An overview of the process steps, who performs each step, and the average time taken to complete is outlined below.