An Armidale pharmacy and a local doctor's surgery have become a testing site for digital prescriptions.
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Instead of getting a doctor to fill in a paper prescription, a barcode is sent by email or SMS to the patient, who then gets it scanned at the pharmacy.
Armidale's TerryWhite Chemmart and the Rusden Street Medical Practice are trialling the process locally.
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Pharmacist manager Daniel Flavel, who said they filled their first electronic prescription on May 25, said it had been discussed in the industry for more than a decade.
"Digital prescriptions have been in the pipeline for a while now, but with covid coming through it accelerated that a lot," he said.
He said the government had poured a lot of funding into it and pushed the start date forward.
It was only seven months ago that the federal government changed the law to recognise an electronic prescription as a legal form.
While the vast majority of prescriptions remain on paper, Mr Flavel said electronic prescriptions were working well in the first stage of the trial.
"They do have a lot of advantages. You can't lose them as they're recorded on the phone, (and) they can't be dispensed in more than one place so they're secure as well. It will advantage doctors, patients and pharmacies."
He said they can be reissued if patients accidentally delete them.
It doesn't replace going to the doctor, but Mr Flavel said it takes away some of the administrative burden.
"You still will have a consultation with the doctor, whether that's telehealth or in person, and the doctor can immediately send that script to you via email or SMS. You can either send that on to a pharmacy or present that physically on your phone in store."
Mr Flavel said the first phase of the trial had taken a lot of work by their owners and team to get it up and running.
"It has been a really big team effort," he said. "Everyone has been involved and it's been a long road to getting the first e-script to come in store.
"Later in the year, they're expecting to have the second phase where we'll actually be able to look up a patient's electronic prescription from their Medicare card."
