Traditional Prescription Goes Digital in Veneto Region, Italy

From today, in Veneto Region the traditional prescription will make room for the digital one. The prescription drug will no longer be delivered to patients by general practitioners on the traditional "red prescription", but through a memo printed on white paper. With this reminder citizens will, as usual, go to the pharmacy and pick up the prescribed medication. A minor change to the user that implies a great evolution for health services of Veneto. Indeed, the infrastructure needed to implement the regional Electronic Health Record, essential tool to both regional and national health care system for the improvement of services to citizens, has been created thanks to the dematerialisation of pharmaceutical prescriptions. To achieve the objective the process of dematerialisation of production and delivery of prescriptions has been completed thanks to the telecommunication network that connects physicians, Local Health Authorities, pharmacies, Region and the Ministry of Economy. This goal was achieved by Veneto Region in collaboration with all the regional Local Health Authorities and the support of Arsenàl.IT, Veneto's Research Centre for eHealth Innovation, that has as its members the LHAs and hospital trusts of the Region and coordinates the initiative within the project regional Electronic Health Record.

The system is ready for the green light on September 1. As of today in fact, 98% of GPs and paediatricians who work in the Region send already digital prescriptions, while 97% of the regional pharmacies are capable of delivering drugs according to the new mode.

However it should be pointed out that, in order to enable the continuity of service, it is still possible for physicians to use the traditional prescription during home medical examinations and in some exceptional cases, while a specific series of drugs is excluded from the digital prescription process at the moment.

It is important to underline that the transition to digital prescriptions allows significant savings to the health system. Arsenàl.IT has calculated that due to the dematerialization of pharmaceutical prescription (about 40 millions per year) Veneto will save € 3,244,901 per year.

Citizens will be informed of the change through a communication campaign titled "Cambia il colore, aumenta il valore" (The colour changes, the value increases) that provides for the distribution of information materials in the offices of general practitioners and pharmacies.

About Arsenàl.IT, Veneto's Research Centre for eHealth Innovation
Veneto's Research Centre for eHealth Innovation, Arsenàl.IT aims at enhancing the clinical processes and the assistance offered to citizens by means of a collaboration among associated members, an optimization of involved resources, a reduction of costs and a facilitation of the change management.

Most Popular Now

AI Tool Helps Predict Who will Benefit f…

A study led by UCLA investigators shows that artificial intelligence (AI) could play a key role in improving treatment outcomes for men with prostate cancer by helping physicians determine who...

Research Shows AI Technology Improves Pa…

Existing research indicates that the accuracy of a Parkinson's disease diagnosis hovers between 55% and 78% in the first five years of assessment. That's partly because Parkinson's sibling movement disorders...

AI in Healthcare: How do We Get from Hyp…

The Highland Marketing advisory board met to consider the government's enthusiasm for AI. To date, healthcare has mostly experimented with decision support tools, and their impact on the NHS and...

Who's to Blame When AI Makes a Medi…

Assistive artificial intelligence technologies hold significant promise for transforming health care by aiding physicians in diagnosing, managing, and treating patients. However, the current trend of assistive AI implementation could actually...

First Therapy Chatbot Trial Shows AI can…

Dartmouth researchers conducted the first clinical trial of a therapy chatbot powered by generative AI and found that the software resulted in significant improvements in participants' symptoms, according to results...

DMEA sparks: The Future of Digital Healt…

8 - 10 April 2025, Berlin, Germany. Digitalization is considered one of the key strategies for addressing the shortage of skilled workers - but the digital health sector also needs qualified...

DeepSeek: The "Watson" to Doct…

DeepSeek is an artificial intelligence (AI) platform built on deep learning and natural language processing (NLP) technologies. Its core products include the DeepSeek-R1 and DeepSeek-V3 models. Leveraging an efficient Mixture...

Stepping Hill Hospital Announced as SPAR…

Stepping Hill Hospital, part of Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, has replaced its bedside units with state-of-the art devices running a full range of information, engagement, communications and productivity apps, to...

DMEA 2025: Digital Health Worldwide in B…

8 - 10 April 2025, Berlin, Germany. From the AI Act, to the potential of the European Health Data Space, to the power of patient data in Scandinavia - DMEA 2025...