September because of delays over the approval for electronic "signatures".
Southern District Health Board chief information officer Grant Taylor said he was reasonably confident the approval from the director-general of health would be forthcoming.
The issue was whether approval would just be given to the board for the $642,000 pilot being funded by the Ministry of Health's safe medication management programme, or a permanent approval which would apply nationally.
The six-month pilot, which will involve the hospital's internal medicine department, was "good to go" and if approval was given soon it might be possible to introduce it before September.
Training of staff who would be involved with the pilot would begin as soon as the approval was given.
It is hoped that electronic prescribing will reduce the number of medication errors which occur in hospitals.
Nationally, the Ministry of Health estimates that hospital prescribing errors may cause 150 deaths a year and 4000 injuries nationally.
