Australian Medical Association

Draft proposals by the Productivity Commission designed to reduce the red tape burden on medical practices will benefit patients, the AMA said today.

A Productivity Commission draft review into regulatory burdens on business recommends that the Government drop the requirement for doctors to seek approval from Medicare Australia to prescribe certain drugs under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

AMA Vice President, Dr Steve Hambleton said: “red tape restricts patient access to medical care and some GPs spend up to nine hours a week completing paperwork. ”

“Every hour a GP spends doing paperwork, around four patients are denied access to a doctor.”

The AMA Position Statement on Electronic Prescription Transfer Systems – 2009 supports the development of an electronic prescription transfer system as a fundamental building block for a broader eHealth system in Australia. It sets out the high level principles that should underpin an electronic prescription transfer system.

The development of an e system in Australia is supported by:

1. the National eHealth Strategy
2. the KPMG Consultancy in Electronic Prescribing and Dispensing Final Report (commissioned by the Department of Health and Ageing);
3. the National Health and Hospital Reform Commission (NHHRC) Interim Report, including the supplementary paper on person-controlled electronic health records; and
4. commercial vendors actively promoting their prescribing systems.

The AMA position on other aspects of eHealth are set out in the following position statements:

AMA Position Statement – Unique Healthcare Identifiers – 2008
AMA Position Statement – Connectivity – 2007
AMA Position Statement – Safety and Quality of E-Health Systems – 2006

AMA Position Statement: Medicines - 2008