Thanks Spider. I don't know if this project was put out to...

Thanks Spider.

I don't know if this project was put out to Australia wide tender by Vic Health but I expect a Victorian based company and leading pharmacy software company like Fred (which also developed E-script prescription exchange) would probably have had had a mortgage on it. The following MJA article puts a greater perspective on the Australia wide development of a real-time monitoring system to get on top of the major issue of abuse of prescription medications. What complicates things is that legally each State has an individual responsibility to monitor supply of Controlled substances and some other drugs of abuse. We all no how the States can never find it easy to cooperate.

https://www.doctorportal.com.au/mja...time-prescription-monitoring-cant-work-alone/

As can be seen from the reference above Victoria seems to be going it alone for some reason. Maybe they are frustrated in delays caused by the procrastination of the other States. At a Federal level these sort of projects usually involve a discussion between relevant government agencies and all interested pharmacy software suppliers followed with cooperative development. Corum is a member of the group that has an interface with gov't E-health developers and also would have opportunity for direct access to them also. In cases of joint development projects some funds are often provided to the software suppliers. There may potentially be some additional income stream for pharmacies and software supplies similar to the E-script payment following implementation of the real-time monitoring system.