The Pharmacy Guild of Australia has backed Federal Government plans for a health care card that records medical histories.
According to health minister Nicola Roxon, the card would be voluntary and patients could choose what was recorded on it. They would also be able to nominate which health professionals were able to access its data, overcoming privacy concerns linked to the Howard Government's access card.
Ms Roxon said the development of such a card would improve patient care.
"It would save a lot of time, a lot of inconvenience for patients and would reduce some serious mishaps that occur because that information is not easily available," she said.
In a statement released yesterday, the Guild said the card would allow pharmacists to see a patient's full medicines history including prescription medicines, Pharmacist Only medicines and even certain complementary medicines, and ensure there were no interactions.
"At present many patients assume that their community pharmacist has access to previously dispensed prescription medicines at different pharmacies and from hospital admissions. This is not the case and patients being discharged from public and private hospitals need to have the ability to opt-in those medicine records to the system," it said.
The Guild also urged the Government to involve health professionals in the design and implementation of the system or else risk losing more public money in another failed e-health system.