Creating an ePrescription

This article explains how to create and submit an electronic prescription (ePrescription) using the eRx integration in HealthTrack.

ePrescribing must be configured before you can create ePrescriptions. If you have not set this up yet, see the ePrescribing & Health Identifier Service Setup article.

Electronic prescriptions can only be created and managed in the HealthTrack desktop application. HealthTrack Web can view medications and create paper prescriptions, but it cannot create, resend or cancel electronic prescriptions.

Before You Start

To create an ePrescription, you need:

Health Identifiers configured for your location and providers
eRx set up for the prescribing provider
An active MIMS subscription
The patient's IHI (Individual Healthcare Identifier) validated within the last 24 hours

The patient's IHI is automatically re-validated when their booking status is changed to Arrived, or when changes are saved to their Medicare number, DVA number, or IHI on the Demographic tab.

Verifying a Patient's IHI

If the patient's IHI has not been validated recently, you will see a Check for IHI button when starting a prescription. You can also verify it manually beforehand:

Open the patient's Demographic screen and select the Additional tab.
Click the Verify button next to the IHI field.
HealthTrack will search for and validate the patient's IHI using their existing details.

If the IHI cannot be validated, an error message will appear and the IHI will not be stored. The prescription type will default to Paper until the IHI is resolved.

Creating the Prescription

Navigate to the patient's Clinical Summary tab.
Open the prescribing module as you normally would to create a new prescription.
In the Medication Details section, select Electronic as the prescription type.
Search for and select the medication, then fill in the prescription details (dose, quantity, repeats, etc.) as normal. The generic (active ingredient) name is mandatory for electronic prescriptions.
You can prescribe more than one medication in the same session. Each medication becomes its own electronic prescription with its own token; there is no multi-medication electronic script.
Click the Prescribe button to proceed to the preview.

MIMS Drug Safety Checks

While you are selecting medications, HealthTrack checks the prescription against the MIMS drug safety database and warns you about:

Warning type	What it means
Drug interaction	The medication may interact with another medication the patient is taking.
Duplicate therapy	The medication duplicates a therapy the patient is already on.
Drug-allergy	The medication matches an allergy recorded for the patient.
Drug-disease	The medication is contraindicated for a condition recorded for the patient.

Warnings are ranked by severity. They are advisory: HealthTrack shows the warning but does not block you from prescribing.

If you expected a warning and none appeared, the usual causes are:

MIMS is not enabled for your practice. Without an active MIMS subscription and MIMS enabled at your site, no drug safety checks run. This is set at the practice level, so contact HealthTrack Support if you are unsure.
Drug-disease checks are a separate option. Your practice can have drug interaction, duplicate therapy and allergy checking switched on while drug-disease contraindication checking is off. This is a practice-level setting, so if the other warning types appear but drug-disease ones never do, contact HealthTrack Support to check whether it is turned on.
Your severity filter is hiding lower-severity drug interactions. Go to User Preferences > Personal Details and Startup and check MIMS Drug-Drug Interactions Severity Filtering. If it is set to Only show Moderate and Severe drug interactions, milder interactions are not shown. Set it to Show all interactions however severe they may be (the default) to see every interaction.
The allergy is free-text or not mapped to MIMS. The drug-allergy check only works for allergies recorded against a coded allergen that is mapped to MIMS. Free-text allergies are never checked against prescriptions. If the patient has coded allergies that are not yet mapped to MIMS, HealthTrack shows a dismissible warning at prescribe time that those allergies will not be used when checking for possible drug interactions. Select Map Allergies to map them, or Continue to prescribe without the check.

Note:

MIMS drug safety checks run in the desktop application only. HealthTrack Web does not perform interaction or allergy checking.

How the Prescription Type is Selected

HealthTrack remembers the last prescription type used for each patient. If the previous prescription was Electronic, it will default to Electronic for the next one, regardless of which doctor issued it.

The type will automatically fall back to Paper if:

The current prescriber is not configured for ePrescribing
The patient's IHI has not been verified in the last 24 hours

Previewing and Submitting

After clicking Prescribe, the Electronic Prescription Preview screen appears. This shows all the information that will be sent to eRx.

Choose How to Deliver the Token

At the top of the preview, select how the patient will receive their prescription token. At least one option must be selected for each item:

Option	Description
Email token	Sends the token to the patient's email address from their Demographic record.
SMS token	Sends the token to the patient's mobile number from their Demographic record.
Print token	Prints a paper token with a QR code. This is not a paper prescription; it is a scannable token the pharmacist uses to retrieve the ePrescription.

If you prescribed more than one medication, the preview contains one electronic prescription per medication, and delivery options are set per item. Use the navigation to review each item before submitting.

The patient's MySL (My Script List) status is also shown on this screen. If the patient has a MySL, the prescription will be available for pharmacists to dispense from it, unless the patient has opted out.

Submit the Prescription

Review the prescription details on the preview screen.
Click the Submit button in the bottom-right corner.
HealthTrack will display real-time status messages as the prescription is processed.

For Schedule 8 medications, you will be asked to re-enter your credentials before the prescription is submitted. This re-authentication is an Australian Digital Health Agency requirement.

The submission goes through these stages:

Stage	What's happening
Preparing prescription	HealthTrack retrieves a new identifier from eRx.
Waiting for PDS Acknowledgement	The prescription has been sent to eRx and is awaiting confirmation.
Transmitting token	eRx has acknowledged the prescription. The token is being delivered via your selected method(s).
Token Transmission Complete	The prescription has been successfully submitted and the token delivered.

You can press the Abort button at any time before receiving the eRx confirmation to cancel the submission.

Automatic Paper Fallback

If the eRx acknowledgement takes longer than the timeout (15 seconds by default; your practice can adjust this), HealthTrack will automatically cancel the electronic prescription and create a paper prescription instead. Where possible, this will be a paper prescription with an eRx barcode so it can still be tracked electronically.

This fallback is designed behaviour, not a fault. If eRx is slow or temporarily unavailable, the patient still leaves with a valid script. If your ePrescriptions keep becoming paper scripts, it usually means the eRx service is having an outage; try again later or contact HealthTrack Support if it continues.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
"Electronic" option is not visible or is unavailable	Work through these causes: the provider does not have an eRx Entity ID configured or the "Doctor can electronically prescribe" checkbox is not selected in their Internal MO settings; your practice does not hold an ePrescribing licence; the patient's IHI has not been validated in the last 24 hours; the location does not have an active HPI-O and certificate; or you are working in HealthTrack Web, which supports paper prescriptions only.
"Check for IHI" button appears	The patient's IHI has not been validated in the last 24 hours. Click the button to validate it, or check their Demographic > Additional tab.
IHI validation fails	The patient's details in HealthTrack may not match the Health Identifiers Service. Verify their Medicare number, name, sex, and date of birth are correct.
Prescription falls back to paper	The eRx service may be temporarily unavailable, or the acknowledgement timed out. This is the automatic paper fallback described above. Try again, or contact HealthTrack Support if the issue persists.
Expected a drug safety warning but none appeared	See the MIMS Drug Safety Checks section above: MIMS may not be enabled, drug-disease checks may be off, your severity threshold may hide the warning, or the allergy may be free-text or unmapped.