HP has signed an eight-year contract with the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety to implement and support an Electronic Prescribing and Eligibility System (EPES).
Paul Simpson, deputy secretary of the department said, EPES is about modernizing the prescribing and dispensing process to improve patient safety, reduce administration costs and reduce fraud in the provision of healthcare in Northern Ireland.
I expect it to be available to community pharmacists within the next two years. It should significantly reduce the inaccuracies that can occur with the current manual process, by tracking patient’s prescription records.
HP’s system will enable the department to counter fraud by cross-referencing patient and prescription information against Social Security and other records. The Central Fraud Unit of the Central Services Agency will be alerted when a false claim has been made.
