Reauthorising, Changing, and Stopping Medications

Reauthorising, Changing, and Stopping Medications

These actions manage the lifecycle of a patient's medications after they have been initially prescribed.

Reauthorising a Repeat Medication

Repeat medications need periodic reauthorisation to continue being issued.

1. Open the medication from the Medication tab
2. Click Reauthorise Medication
3. Select the authorising clinician
4. Choose the authorisation period: 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months
5. For repeat medications, set the number of authorised issues
6. Click Reauthorise Medication to confirm

The medication's expiry date is extended based on the selected period.

Changing Medication Type

Switch a medication between types when the prescribing intent changes.

1. Open the medication and click Change Medication Type
2. Select the new type: Acute, Repeat, or Repeat Dispensing
3. Select the authorising clinician
4. If changing to repeat, set the number of authorised issues
5. Confirm the change

Stopping a Medication

When a medication should be permanently discontinued:

1. Open the medication and click Stop Medication
2. Select a reason from the dropdown:
   • Treatment completed
   • Side effects
   • Not effective
   • Patient request
   • Drug interaction
   • Contraindication
   • Alternative treatment started
   • Other (with a free-text field)
3. Confirm to stop the medication

The medication moves to the Past section with the stop reason recorded.

Prescription Statuses

Prescriptions issued from medications follow this lifecycle:

Status	Meaning
Draft	Created but not yet issued
Issued	Sent or printed for the patient
Dispensed	Medication has been dispensed
Cancelled	Prescription was cancelled
Expired	Prescription has expired

Tip: When stopping a medication, always select the most specific reason available. This information is clinically valuable and may be needed for medication reviews or audit.

Capturing why a medication was ended

When you end a course, you're now prompted for a reason. This is captured against the medication and surfaced in the Course-ended audit timeline inside the medication drawer — so anyone reviewing the record later can see when the course was stopped, by whom, and why, without having to dig through other notes.

Reauthorising restores active state

Reauthorising a previously-ended medication now restores it to an active state, clearing the stop fields. Previously, Reauthorise would create a new authorisation but leave the old stop-date and stop-reason in place, which made the active vs ended status harder to read at a glance.