🇦🇺Australia

Kosten durch Medikationsfehler und Doppelverordnungen bei elektronischen Rezepten

Updated: Feb 20264 verified sources

Definition

Australian guidance highlights that electronic prescribing and broader electronic medication management systems are intended to reduce, but do not eliminate, medication errors, and that fragmented or poorly designed digital systems can still cause safety incidents.[1][8] For example, electronic prescriptions feed into Active Script Lists and apps, and multiple prescribers (including direct‑to‑consumer services) may issue overlapping scripts.[4][5] When errors or duplications occur, prescribers must spend additional time reviewing histories, cancelling or amending prescriptions, contacting pharmacies and patients, and documenting incidents. These activities are often not separately billable in fee‑for‑service contexts, and may also increase professional indemnity exposure. International literature on e‑prescribing shows error rates in the low single‑digit percentages of prescriptions, with a proportion requiring corrective action; applying conservative assumptions to Australian volumes produces significant annual rework costs for practices.

Key Findings

Financial Impact: Quantified (LOGIC): For a typical GP clinic issuing 30,000 prescriptions/year, if 0.5–1% of e‑prescriptions (150–300 scripts) require 10–20 minutes of extra clinician/admin time to correct at an effective fully‑loaded cost of AUD 180–220/hour, this equates to ~75–100 hours/year, i.e. AUD 13,500–22,000 in unreimbursed internal cost. Additional indirect loss includes foregone billable consultations in these time slots.
Frequency: Ongoing; error and duplication risks occur daily in high‑volume practices and whenever new digital services (telehealth, DTC electronic prescription services) are layered onto existing workflows.
Root Cause: Lack of fully integrated electronic medication management across providers; inconsistent visibility of patients’ Active Script Lists and My Health Record at the point of prescribing; limited decision‑support alerts for duplicate or interacting medicines in some clinical systems; users’ limited training in new EPCS workflows.

Why This Matters

The Pitch: Physicians in Australia 🇦🇺 lose AUD 5,000–20,000 per year per clinic in unreimbursed time, repeat consultations and risk management around avoidable electronic prescribing errors. End‑to‑end medication management with decision support reduces error‑driven rework and associated costs.