Huntsville pharmacist Bill Coon and physician Dr. Mathies fill first PrescribeIT e-prescription in Canada

Last month, local physician Dr. David Mathies and pharmacist Bill Coon made history when they were the first in Canada to transmit and receive an electronic prescription using PrescribeIT.

The e-prescribing service was developed by Canada Health Infoway, an independent, not-for-profit organization funded by the federal government. It has thus far reached agreements with six provinces to provide the service which will “provide safer and more effective medication management,” Infoway said in a media release.

“It’s about time we got rid of the fax machine and I like that my prescription is sent fast and safely to my regular pharmacy,” said William T. Neil, whose prescription was the first to be sent from Dr. Mathies’ office at the Algonquin Family Health Team to Coon at the Muskoka Medical Centre Pharmacy through PrescribeIT.

That Neil had the opportunity to be first to have his prescription filled this way was thanks to Coon and his good timing.

“I had had an inquiry from the Algonquin Family Health Team about what I knew about e-prescribing,” said Coon, who first contacted Remedy’s Rx software development team and then followed up that call with one to Canada Health Infoway. “They put me in touch with the pharmacist on staff in charge of the e-prescribing platform. He and I chatted for three or four minutes and I think he gauged that I was intrigued. A couple of days later they said, how about we do it at your store first?”

It’s one of those things you look at it and say, why aren’t we doing it?
Bill Coon, Pharmacist/Owner at Muskoka Medical Centre Pharmacy

Coon likes that PrescribeIT is a time saver. “Prescription transfers will happen more quickly. It comes in, the pharmacist can assess it, and then if there are questions about dosing or drug interactions, you can send a message back right to the doctor’s screen and get that answered quite quickly.”

It will also help reduce errors and help to ensure doctors can more effectively help their patients, says Coon.

“I think looking down the road, what’s going to happen is doctors will get a notification back when we fill the prescription,” said Coon. “Right now, everybody guesses at what percentage of prescriptions don’t get filled totally… Rather than giving somebody a piece of paper that they may or may not decide to take into a pharmacy to get it filled, this way the doctor has some assurance that prescriptions are getting filled. And going forward once everyone is integrated, a patient’s medical records will be securely available to doctors at emergency rooms or other hospitals so that, without compromising a patient’s privacy, those people who need to know specifics about their drug therapy will have access to that.”

As they’ve been working with the new technology, Coon’s business partner Jenna Whitehead has been providing feedback to Infoway. “She has really helped them out with some minor glitches that weren’t timesavers for the pharmacy,” said Coon. The service will be rolled out to other pharmacies in five other provinces in the coming months.

“PrescribeIT brings prescribing into the 21st century,” said Dr. Mathies. “PrescribeIT is integrated into my electronic medical record, so it lets me send the prescription to my patient’s pharmacy with one simple click – it’s as easy as pressing send.”

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