Thousands of lives have been saved across Western Victoria and the Wimmera since early when the SafeScript program was rolled out.
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The real-time prescription monitoring system has alerted doctors and pharmacists at more than 400 sites across the Western Victoria Primary Health Network to almost 3,300 patients at risk of harm or overdose from visiting multiple clinics or pharmacies since being implemented nearly three months ago.
The system prevents people from doctor shopping, using one script to load up on prescription medication. Pharmacists and doctors are now able to see information about the patient and their prescription history.
Related: SafeScript rolled out to save lives
More than 400 people died from prescription medicine overdoses in 2017, a number hoped to significantly drop with the new system.
“We said SafeScript would save lives and that’s exactly what this cutting-edge program is doing,” Victorian health minister Jenny Mikakos said.
“Prescription drug dependency can happen to anyone and the consequences can be tragic.”
SafeScript is monitoring all schedule eight medicines such as morphine and oxycodone, and other medicines such as codeine and diazepam.
Ararat and Stawell were one of the towns in which the program was rolled out. It is expected to be rolled out statewide in April 2019.
Stawell Amcal pharmacist Brian Hancock said he has already seen the benefits of the system.
“It comes into effect quite regularly, maybe 20 or so times in a daily basis,” he said.
“We get a warning flash on the computer – not all of those warnings are something we need to act on, it is quite rare we have to act actually.
“We do place a bigger scrutiny on out of town customers or ones we don’t know since they are the ones more likely to be doctor shopping. It is helping catch those people out and keep people a lot safer.”
The state government also introduced a public awareness campaign for people to receive confidential advice by calling the 24-hour SafeScript pharmaceutical helpline on 1800 737 233.
