Viewing PharmaNet Data - EPNMP.02

PharmaNet provides you with a complete view of your patient’s medications through the ‘patient medication profile’ (or “medication history”). The medication profile will return the patient’s ePrescription and medication history for:

• the past 14 months, or
• the most recent 15 dispenses within the past 14 months.

The medication profile also includes clinical conditions and adverse reactions with associated comments regardless of when those conditions or reactions were originally recorded in PharmaNet.

Note: Depending on the size of the patient’s profile, it may take a few minutes when you first download it.

Accessing Information

Before you can access your patient’s PharmaNet medication profile, you must validate the patient’s identity and synchronize their demographics with the Client Registry. Without Client Registry validation and synchronization, access to your patient’s PharmaNet data and other electronic health record (EHR) repositories will not be authorized.

The Client Registry and PharmaNet provide access to information about many people. You may access this information only to support clinical care or your practice operations. No one is permitted to ‘browse’ the Client Registry or PharmaNet or to look up information for reasons other than the care of their patients.

When to Review

Review the medication profile as close to the time of the patient’s visit as possible. Because PharmaNet is a real time system, it may be updated throughout the day as new information becomes available (e.g., new prescriptions and dispenses of prescriptions from other health care providers).

Display of Medications

PharmaNet provides a patient’s ePrescription and medication information from the past 14 months or the last 15 dispenses within the past 14 months. All medications dispensed in B.C. community pharmacies appear in the patient’s medication profile. The information includes dispenses both with, and without, associated ePrescriptions.

For prescriptions to appear in PharmaNet, they must be created by either an ePrescribing physician or pharmacy with PharmaNet ePrescribing functionaility. 

Note: If a pharmacy receives a paper prescription, the pharmacist must enter it as an ePrescription on PharmaNet before dispensing and submitting a claim for the medication.

Review the patient’s full medication profile for a complete overview of the patient’s medication information.

Source of Information

The medication profile may be viewed and stored in your software application. Your electronic medical record (EMR) will identify the source of the information:

• EMR/Point of Service (POS) - means the item was created within your practice (e.g., something someone in your practice prescribed); and
• EHR/PharmaNet - means the information came from PharmaNet (e.g., prescribed by a provider in another practice).

Identifying Errors

If you see errors in a patient’s medication profile, you must inform the responsible medical practice or pharmacy so that the problem can be corrected.

If you need to contact the pharmacy that dispensed the medication, you can obtain their contact information through the location identifier or Pharmacy ID displayed in the data you received from PharmaNet.

Medications Not Listed in PharmaNet

Some medications are not listed in a patient’s PharmaNet profile. These include:

• medications not dispensed by community pharmacies (that is, in-patient medications);
• medications for the treatment of HIV/AIDS dispensed through the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS;
• medications for the treatment of cancer dispensed through the BC Cancer Agency;
• samples or over-the-counter medications—these appear only if a patient’s physician or pharmacist elects to add them to the profile; and
• The Ministry of Health may remove information about a dispensed medication in response to an error in a patient’s medication profile.

Dispensing Pharmacy Location

To contact the dispensing pharmacy, you can request the pharmacy contact information using the Pharmacy ID or Location Identifier provided by PharmaNet.