Request for medication

When a request for a medication comes in to the practice – or when a colleague sees a patients and wants me to sign off on their decision – they tend to send me a “Request with Query” via my Medicines Management system. They enter the drug – the dose – the instructions – make sure the right chemist is chosen and then they comment explaining why its wanted/needed. My role is to look at the request and press OK or NOT OK. Yes sometimes I have to look in notes or speak to patient myself but in most cases with the right info I can usually Press OK and its done.

Compare this to some other tasks… the classic – can i issue a Fit Note – at the moment – if there is enough information on the task (and there often isn’t) I have to select the pt – create a “admin” consultation select the relevant problem title – open create a Fit note – re-enter it there (unless its coded in which case it appears) then select the length of time. then save it to the record then open my SMS client and send a link to it and then file the consultation then close the task. A lot longer than pressing OK. but.. here’s the rub – it wouldn’t be that difficult to have it so all i had to do was press ok. here is a sick note – with all the details prefilled in – do you agree are you willing to authorise – ok or no…. How much time would this save? A lot believe me.. Why aren’t our EPR suppliers thinking about this kind of thing?

Ive recently been looking at several new kids on the block – new EPRs hoping to take over. Most are pretty with new layouts and new fonts and perhaps some more thought into having more info on the screen but none so far ive seen have really thought through how do we minimise the amount of work that needs to be done. how do we make sure the work is done by the lowest level in the chain not the highest.

I can think all all sorts of things that the system could/should automate itself to make my life more productive. I’ll list some in future posts but I’m keen to hear your ideas!