People concerned about their allergies to medication should make sure all health professionals treating them know, Dunedin pharmacist Chin Loh says.
That could include not only general practitioners and specialists but also dentists and pharmacists.
Mr Loh was commenting on a recent Otago Daily Times article about the national medical warnings system on which medication allergies for hospital patients can be recorded.
At this stage, pharmacists, general practitioners and dentists are among those who do not have direct access to the system, which records the warnings against a patient's national health index (NHI) number.
There are plans to broaden accessibility in conjunction with the upgrading of the NHI system, but it is not known how far this might extend.
In the meantime, Mr Loh said anyone with an allergy could tell their regular pharmacist, who could record it at that pharmacy.
It was not ideal because that information would only be stored at that pharmacy and would not be available elsewhere.
He agreed it would be necessary to establish a person was describing a true allergy rather than an expected side effect of a medication.
While there were many reasons why people did not always use the same pharmacy, pharmacists did get to know their regular customers and recognise changes in them, which could be relevant to their health care.
Sometimes people assumed all those involved in their care automatically knew all the relevant history, such as their allergies, but that was not the case.
Mr Loh is looking forward to electronic prescribing being extended beyond the hospital setting, something which he expects could take about five years, provided funding is available.
There has been a successful electronic prescribing pilot in part of Dunedin Hospital but no word yet of its extension to other hospitals.
Having a standard prescribing system would make pharmacists' lives much easier, improve efficiency considerably and allow time to be spent on measures which would improve patient health, Mr Loh said.
For some years pharmacists have been expressing concern about the time they spend consulting prescribers to correct a variety of prescribing errors.
A more efficient electronic system would free up pharmacists to provide more help to people taking medications to ensure they were taking them correctly.
