The paper prescriptions issued by doctors for collecting medicines in pharmacies will be converted to a digital solution. This e-prescription should be available to all patients throughout Austria by the end of the first half of 2022 at the latest. This was announced by the co-chairman of the conference of social security agencies, Peter Lehner, in an interview with the APA.
The e-prescription is created in the doctor’s software in the practice and saved in the background in the e-card system. A QR code created with this can be called up on the mobile phone via an app (such as Meine SV) and then scanned by the pharmacy, with which the patient receives the drug in question. Lehner emphasized that the e-prescription can only be redeemed once and is therefore more forgery-proof than the paper version.
Insured persons without a smartphone can also get a printout of the e-prescription from which the QR code can be scanned. This e-prescription also contains an alpha-numeric code with which the prescription can also be redeemed. If necessary, the e-prescription can also be issued without the patient being present (with an SV number and admin card).
If not only the QR code is scanned in the pharmacy but also the e-card is inserted, then the pharmacist can not only call up the currently prescribed medication, but also all open e-prescriptions for a person. As is already the case with e-medication, the pharmacist can use it to identify any drug interactions and draw the patient’s attention.
With e-medication, doctors can already issue a prescription digitally, which the patient can then redeem with the e-card in the pharmacy. With the new system of the e-prescription, however, any changes made by the pharmacy must now be entered in the system. Lehner emphasized that the e-prescription creates more security for patients and pharmacies. Above all, however, the new system brings savings for the bureaucracy, because billing with social security also works digitally and the entire process has thus been digitized for the first time.
In a pilot project, the e-recipe was already tested this year from June to September in Völkermarkt and Wolfsberg in Carinthia. 33 ordinations and 13 pharmacies took part, 33,000 prescriptions were issued. According to Lehner, the new service was received very positively by patients as well as doctors and pharmacists. The feedback has already been incorporated, so the form was adapted. However, there is still a desire to include private prescriptions.
The rollout for the new system is already underway. The software is already installed in ordinations and pharmacies and as soon as both the respective doctor and the pharmacy have changed over, the patient can also use the new service. The rollout should be completed in the first half of 2022. The e-prescription is intended to replace the e-medication installed during the corona pandemic, which according to the law is limited to March 31, 2022 with a transition phase of a further three months. If the planned schedule holds, no change in the law would be necessary for an extension of e-medication.
The costs for the development are given at around 2.4 million euros. In addition, there are implementation costs in the ordinations and pharmacy and subsidies for software manufacturers of around 4 million euros.