Due to the pandemic, the government has fast-tracked the rollout of electronic scripts and their use is becoming increasingly common.

Over one million electronic prescriptions have been issued since June.

Doctors can send E-Scripts in the form of QR codes to patients' mobile devices via SMS or email.

The code can be forwarded to a pharmacy or brought in to be scanned, allowing the script to be filled.

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Pharmacist in charge at Moodie's Pharmacy, Spencer McTavish, said that while there's only a few doctor surgeries offering them, every pharmacy in Bathurst has the ability to dispense electronic scripts.

The new technology is helping to simplify the process at a time when a lot of doctors are engaging with their patients remotely.

"It's another level of contactless efficiency through COVID," Mr McTavish said.

"The idea behind it is basically telehealth consultations are going up, so instead of the doctor traditionally faxing the script to the pharmacy, having to follow up with paperwork, chasing the hard copy, chasing the repeats, they can actually just have the telehealth consult and send the script to the patient's phone."

At the moment, the technology is most effective for people who need just one medicine. For patients on multiple medication/disease states, paper prescriptions remain the best option.

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As the system becomes more widely used, it will make the job easier for pharmacists as well.

Mr McTavish said a paperless electronic health system has "much bigger and broader benefits once you reach your optimal system" and this is a step forward in that.

When new technology emerges, it is understandable that people can become concerned about their privacy and data protection.

Mr McTavish assured that there are protections in place for personal information.

"The Prescription Exchange Service (PES) is encrypted to a high level and held to the same digital security standards as your My Gov and My Health Record," he said.

"The QR code acts as the encryption key to unlock a particular person's secured prescription data within the PES. In short, if you trust the My Gov and My Health Record databases/systems you should in theory be happy to trust your script data in the PES."

He said that if people think electronic scripts could be a suitable form of medication management, they should speak to their doctor to get more information.