Sending an e-prescription
Updated over a week ago

📌 Note: PrescribeIT® is currently available only for TELUS CHR users in PEI. It will be more widely available in the future.

After you create a prescription, you can send the prescription similarly to how you print or fax prescriptions. When viewing a prescription, in addition to the print button, there is a Send or Send to Pharmacy button that replaces the fax button. You must choose a pharmacy that is enabled for PrescribeIT®, where the patient plans to fill the prescription.

📌 Note: Only users who have PrescribeIT® enabled can send an e-prescription, and the user’s selected location must also be enabled for PrescribeIT®. If you are sending an existing signed prescription, you must also be the provider who signed it. Users who are not enabled for PrescribeIT® do not see the button to send to the pharmacy.

Steps

1. Create or renew your prescription(s) as you normally do. Choose the medication and fill in the prescription details (see Creating prescriptions or Renewing medications from a patient’s Medications list).

  • You can e-prescribe devices, compounds, and non-drug related products as well as medications. There is a maximum of 50 medications on one e-prescription.

  • If you enter Conditions (in the Extra tab), a maximum of 5 are allowed for e-prescriptions.

  • A prescription status icon is displayed to indicate if the prescription is ready to be e-prescribed (i.e. has the required fields). If the prescription is not ready to be e-prescribed, the icon is yellow. If the prescription is ready to be e-prescribed, the icon is green. This icon appears in the window when you are entering a medication, in the prescription dialog (prescription pad), and in the encounter.

📌 Note: For an e-prescription, a Quantity or Duration is required. For the Dose, Duration, and Quantity fields, if you enter a numeric value you must also specify a unit.

📌 Note: The check for the required fields for an e-prescription occurs only when PrescribeIT® is enabled for your current location.

2. When you are finished, click Save.

📌 Note: If the prescription is not ready to be e-prescribed (the prescription status icon is yellow), you can save the prescription but an error will appear when you attempt to send the prescription. Edit the prescription and provide any missing information so the prescription is ready to be e-prescribed (icon is green).

💡 Tip: Hover your cursor over the prescription status icon to see what information you need to add to make the prescription ready to e-prescribe.

3. Send the e-prescription. The button is different depending on where you started the prescription:

a) If the prescription was started from an encounter, click the Send icon in the prescription window, or Sign & Send from the Prescriptions area of the encounter.

b) If the prescription was started from the Prescriptions area (Start/Open > Prescriptions), you must first sign the prescription. Click Sign, then choose Send to Pharmacy.

💡 Tip: You can also send an existing signed prescription from the Prescriptions area if you are the provider who signed the prescription. However, if the prescription has any cancelled medications (see Cancelling signed prescriptions), you must print or fax it.

4. In the window that appears, search for and select the pharmacy to send the prescription to.

💡 Tip: If the patient has a preferred pharmacy recorded, it is automatically selected for you. Confirm this is the pharmacy the patient intends to go to and change it, if necessary.

  • Pharmacies that are enabled for PrescribeIT® appear with the eRx icon.

  • Pharmacies that were found in the Provider Registry (but not your local facilities list) display with a cloud icon to the left. If you select one of these pharmacies, a message appears indicating that the pharmacy will also be added as a contact in your CHR local facilities list. Click Okay to continue.

  • If you choose a pharmacy that is in your local facilities list but is not enabled for PrescribeIT®, the CHR automatically does a background check to determine if this pharmacy has since registered for e-prescribing. If so, the pharmacy’s Provider Registry ID is added to your local facilities list entry and you see the eRx icon appear beside the pharmacy name after you select it. You can then send an e-prescription to that pharmacy.

💡 Tip: Click Send History to see and select from the last 10 pharmacies that were used to send a prescription for this patient. This is helpful if the patient has more than one preferred pharmacy - for example, one close to work and one close to home. Pharmacies that are currently enabled for PrescribeIT® appear with the eRx icon.

5. Click e-Sign & Send.

Several requirements must be met before the prescription can be sent. Review the scenarios below to understand what happens if the requirements are not met and how to solve the issue.

Scenario

What happens

Steps to address issue

Not connected to PrescribeIT®

You are prompted for the two-factor authentication code.

Enter the code and click e-Sign & Send again. (For more information, see Connecting to or disconnecting from the e-prescription service).

Selected pharmacy is not enabled for PrescribeIT®

An error appears.

Select a PrescribeIT®-enabled pharmacy or print or fax the prescription instead.

Current location is not enabled for PrescribeIT® and user is not authorized to send e-prescriptions from that location

An error appears.

From your avatar, click Change Location and select a location that is enabled for PrescribeIT® and that you are authorized to send from, or print or fax the prescription instead.

Prescription does not have required fields for e-prescribing completed

An error appears.

📌 Note: This can happen if you are sending a prescription that was previously saved, or if you added a medication to a prescription using an option that does not open the prescription entry window (e.g. selecting my frequents or this patient’s medications on a new prescription).

If the prescription hasn’t been signed, edit the prescription and complete the required fields.

💡 Tip: Hover your cursor over the yellow prescription status icon to see what information is missing.

If the prescription has been signed, print or fax the prescription.

User sending the prescription is not the same user who signed it

An error appears.

Print or fax the prescription.

Prescription includes cancelled medications

The e-Sign & Send button is not available.

Print or fax the prescription.

6. If all the requirements are met, the prescription is sent electronically to the chosen pharmacy and the send button is greyed out. The patient’s active allergies, height, and weight are also sent to the pharmacy.

📌 Note: For e-prescriptions, the location sent on the prescription is your currently selected location, not what is set as My Prescription Location in Settings > Prescriptions.

If the pharmacy cannot receive the e-prescription, it will automatically be faxed instead. When e-prescriptions are sent, they first go to a central switch called Shared Health Exchange. This central switch then sends the e-prescription to the pharmacy. If the central switch receives an error that the e-prescription could not be delivered to the pharmacy, the e-prescription is converted to a fax and sent. This helps ensure that the pharmacy receives the prescription even if there is a technical issue that prevents the prescription being sent electronically.

7. Once sent, the prescription appears with an eRx icon in the list of the patient’s prescriptions (Start/Open > Prescriptions). If you started the prescription from an encounter, the eRx icon appears in the encounter as well, once the encounter is signed.

If the prescription failed to send electronically and was faxed via PrescribeIT® instead, the icon shows both eRx and fax.

To see more information, including the pharmacy the prescription was sent to, click the clock icon beside the prescription to view the History for that prescription.

📌 Note: If the prescription fails to send by both methods, the provider who sent it receives a message in their inbox. For more information, see Troubleshooting PrescribeIT®.

The prescription also shows as ePrescribed or eFaxed in the provider Outbox and Patient Outbox. You can see if the item was sent successfully or failed.

In the Patient Outbox, use the Rx via PrescribeIT and Rx via eFax by PrescribeIT filters to see only e-prescriptions.

8. If the prescription was successfully sent and the patient wants a paper copy for reference, you can print it (see Printing prescriptions). The prescription indicates that it is a reference copy and not an official prescription, so the patient cannot fill the prescription twice. The provider’s signature is also not included on the printed prescription.

📌 Note: Printing a reference copy of a prescription will not change the delivery method icon in the patient’s Prescriptions list.

Updated July 31, 2023

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