The life-saving role of clinical tools in reducing risk for vulnerable Australians was acknowledged last week with Victoria’s SafeScript real-time prescription monitoring winning a national award for innovation and excellence.

The Fred IT Group congratulates the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services for winning the Australian
Information Industry Association iAward in the category of Infrastructure & Platforms Innovation of the Year for SafeScript.

Fred worked with the Department to develop SafeScript and roll it out across Victoria. The first clinicians started using SafeScript during patient consultations in October 2018. Since then, clinicians have received clinical risk alerts relating to more than 57,000 Victorians.

According to Paul Naismith, pharmacist and CEO of Fred,

“As pharmacists, we continue to see the devastating toll that occurs in the community as a result of the misuse of prescription medications. Tragically, with last week’s release of the Australian Overdose Report*, we know that the number of deaths occurring through accidental overdose continues to grow.”
“We applaud the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services for taking leadership on this vital issue. We can already see the evidence in terms of how many people SafeScript is helping – 57,000 Victorians in nine months in Victoria alone. It is gratifying to see SafeScript being recognised for its role in reducing clinical risk for vulnerable Victorians and, now through the national data exchange, available to all Australians.”

According to Fred’s joint venture partner, Telstra Health, Managing Director, Mary Foley,

“SafeScript is one of Fred’s and Telstra Health’s great successes, partnering with governments, clinicians and pharmacists to reduce the incidence of opioid and other controlled substance abuse, preventing avoidable deaths.”

SafeScript provides real-time monitoring of Schedule 8 medications and other high-risk medications, such as morphine and oxycodone, which carry the highest risk of misuse, and other high-risk medicines, including all benzodiazepines such as diazepam.

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