Pharmacy Daily | Report backs real-time call

THE Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) has said recent research backs its call for a real time drug monitoring system. PSA NSW president Dr Stephen Carter has backed deputy state coroner Carmel Forbes’ call for urgent implementation of real time prescription reporting for all benzodiazepines (PD 07 Jul) and said recent research published in the Journal of Clinical Pharmacology found that between 1992 and 2012, opioid dispensing increased from 500,000 to 7.5m with a cost to the Australian government increased from $8.5m to $271m. Opioid related hospitalisations increased from 605 to 1,464 cases from 1998 to 2009 and deaths due to accidental poisoning from pharmaceutical opioids and illicit substances combined rose from 151 to 266 from 2002 to 2011. “The NSW Government must immediately allocate funds for this project and begin its implementation as a Statewide health priority.” A Federal Department of Health spokeswoman said the government had funded the Electronic Recording and Reporting of Controlled Drugs (ERRCD) system which was installed on a secure host server and was operational, waiting for each state and territory to start using it. “The ERRCD system has been handed over to states and territories for their use via complimentary software licence agreements.” Recently all states and territories were urged to take up the ERRCD and requested to advise of their progress, the spokeswoman said. CLICK HERE to read the research.

---

The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 17 Jul 14
To see the full newsletter, see the embedded issue below or CLICK HERE to download Pharmacy Daily from 17 Jul 14