Electronic controlled-drugs book in works for next year

New Zealand pharmacies may have access to an electronic controlled-drugs register in the first half of next year.

Pharmacy software company Toniq has been developing an electronic controlled-drugs register in the form of a cloud-based web application for over five years.

Toniq senior product manager Luke Tilson says the application interfaces with Toniq’s pharmacy management system, Toniq Dispensary, and will allow pharmacists to replace their paper-based book.

“This innovation enhances accuracy and patient safety while relieving pharmacies of the administrative burden of manual record-keeping, allowing them to focus on more critical tasks,” Mr Tilson says in an emailed response.

Currently, each pharmacy is required to maintain a paper controlled-drugs book, where they record all controlled drugs stocked and dispensed.

Toniq’s system will allow this to be done electronically.

Once a transaction is written into the register, an authenticated clinician signs off the transaction using their electronic signature and, after this, the transaction is recorded in the register.

Users will also have easy access to current stock levels and records of transactions and be able to access audit trails of edits and change events.

The app is currently being trialled at some pharmacies and will be released to the market once it has Medsafe approval. Mr Tilson says feedback from the trials has been generally positive and expects the product will be available in the first quarter of 2025.

Delays in getting approval have occurred because the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 1977 legislation is very rigid, and these regulations are based on there being a physical paper book, he says.

“How the regulations would be interpreted in an electronic register has at times taken longer than we would have anticipated. However, more recent and regular communications with Medsafe have seen the trialling process accelerating with sign-off in the first half of 2025 becoming a reality.”