EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Docus, an electronic prescribing and medicine administration app will enable the prescribing,
supply and administration of medicines electronically and will bring with it a significant range of safety,
quality and financial benefits. Medicines are the most common clinical intervention and are increasing in
complexity, which requires more robust monitoring and feedback systems and processes to manage
them safely. In fact, a study entitled “The value of computerized order entry in ambulatory settings”,
predicts that a shift to electronic prescribing (e-prescribing ) systems could avoid more than 2 million
adverse drug events annually, of which 130,000 are life-threatening. E-prescribing also has enormous
potential to create savings in health care cost, through reduction of adverse drug events and in
improved workflows.

The primary aim of Docus is to remove paper based processes from prescribing and medicines
administration and significantly improve patient safety and quality of care. In addition, an electronic
system will improve our medicines management processes and enhance medicines optimization. This
will enable greater control over what is prescribed, how it is prescribed and how it is administered.
Furthermore, direct cash releasing benefits have been identified in a range of non-pay items, including
drugs, blood products, stationary and IV giving sets.

Docus will combine three functions to provide all clinical staff with an integrated view of a patient’s
medication history, through:

 electronic communication of a prescription or medicine order

 aiding the choice, administration and supply of a medicine through knowledge and decision
support
 providing a robust audit trail for the entire medicines use process

In so doing it will deliver a broad range of benefits which can be summarized as follows:

 Patient Safety: no more illegible, ambiguous or incomplete prescriptions; single and

comprehensive view of a patient’s current and historical drug record; real-time decision support
to guide and improve the appropriateness and accuracy of prescribing; real-time view of
medicines administration
 Quality and Clinical Governance: ability to monitor and evaluate key performance indicators,
total visibility of clinical decisions and outcomes
 Operational Productivity: improved communication of real-time information between
prescribers, pharmacy and nursing; paper less; streamlined operational and clinical processes;
more effective control and management of drug expenditure