The PRSB has published new guidance to define how medication dose and timings are communicated digitally between systems in all care settings.

Overview

When people move between different healthcare settings, it’s important that the information about their medications can be shared easily with all the professionals involved in their care. At the moment, hospital and primary care clinicians prescribe differently which means that details about medications and their use instructions vary between settings. The information has to be checked and sometimes translated manually by clinicians. This is time consuming and can lead to errors.

NHS Digital guidance sets out how to communicate medication dose and timings digitally between systems without any change or loss of accuracy or meaning. This will make it easier for patients and clinicians in different care settings to obtain, use and import to their own systems, a patient’s medications, helping them to provide the right care and improve medication safety for patients.

The supporting PRSB information includes a non-technical guidance document for health and care professionals and patients. PRSB standards have been updated to include this medications model.