Pharmacy IT and cybersecurity in Melbourne: Fred Dispense and POS support, internet failover for eScripts, MFA logins, tested backups, CCTV and alarms.
Your team shouldn't have to explain their core systems to an IT provider. These are the systems we work alongside — assisting with support, integration and hosting or management — and we know our way around them.
It covers every system between a script arriving and a customer leaving with their medicine: dispensing workstations, the token scanner, the prescription exchange link, PBS claiming, point-of-sale and EFTPOS, and the cameras and alarms guarding the stock. Key IT supports all of it for Melbourne community pharmacies, working alongside Fred Dispense Plus and Fred Office Plus from Fred IT Group and looking after the hardware, network, accounts and backups underneath, as part of our wider healthcare and medical IT work. Most issues are fixed remotely within minutes, and our in-house 24/7 Security Operations Centre keeps watch long after the roller door comes down.
By looking after the whole dispensing chain, not just the bench PC. The pharmacy scans a patient's token to unlock the prescription from an encrypted electronic prescription delivery service, so if the internet connection or dispensing software is down, the script cannot be retrieved and the queue stops.
An Active Script List is a digital list of a patient's electronic prescriptions. Once registered, a patient can give any participating pharmacy consent to access their list, so nobody scrolls through old text messages for a token. Every lookup depends on reaching the exchange, so we keep workstations patched and consistent, monitor the connection, and add a 4G or 5G failover link so a dropped NBN service does not stop the counter.
With online claiming for PBS, each item is claimed with Services Australia as it is dispensed, and the result comes back almost immediately with a real-time concession check and any warning or rejection codes, before the customer leaves. Pharmacies connect to PBS Online and HPOS through PRODA. A claim is only certified once the claim period is closed in the dispensing software, and the PBS claim details do not appear in the patient's My Health Record until then. We keep those connections, certificates and updates in order so nothing on your side stops claiming mid-afternoon.
Since April 2020, Victorian pharmacists have had to check SafeScript before dispensing a monitored medicine unless an exception applies. Fred Dispense integrates with SafeScript, and the Victorian Department of Health's setup guide has notifications enabled on each dispensing computer, so each replacement workstation needs checking before it reaches the bench.
Keep payments on their own network segment, away from the dispensary computers and any public Wi-Fi. PCI DSS applies to every merchant that stores, processes or transmits cardholder data, including a pharmacy taking tap-and-go at the front counter. Fred Office Plus runs sales, stock and ordering, so we keep its terminals and scanners patched and change every default password, as we do for retail and hospitality IT. The Victorian Pharmacy Authority's guidelines say dispensary computers may only be used for activities related to dispensing, and clerical work such as invoicing and customer accounts should happen on computers outside the dispensary.
We replace them with individual logins that are still quick to use. One shared "dispensary" password means nobody can tell who did what, and someone who left months ago still knows it. The Authority's guidelines ask licensees to consider individual, strong passwords and multi-factor authentication for the first login of the day and on every application holding sensitive information. SafeScript already works this way, with a unique login per practitioner and a daily authentication code. We give each person their own account with authenticator-app sign-in, lock idle screens, and switch access off the day someone finishes up.
The Act applies to you whatever your size. Many businesses turning over $3 million or less sit outside it, but private sector health service providers do not, and the OAIC names pharmacists among them. Victoria's Health Records Act 2001 adds Health Privacy Principles for health information handled here. Under the Privacy Act's Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, an eligible data breach means promptly notifying the people affected and the OAIC. Dispensing histories and Medicare numbers are valuable to attackers, so we encrypt devices, limit who can open patient records and watch for suspicious sign-ins. The Authority also expects dispensary counters arranged so the public cannot see private information. More on cybersecurity for healthcare.
Plan for failure in advance, because a pharmacy cannot tape a "closed for IT" sign to the door. The Authority's guidelines ask licensees to consider regular, encrypted backups kept separately, on a physically secure device or in secure cloud storage, with recovery tested regularly. They also expect cyber security policies, a guide for responding to an incident and a form to record one. We back up dispensing and point-of-sale data where attackers cannot quietly delete it, test restores, and help write those documents. Our 24/7 SOC watches for early signs of ransomware, and our disaster recovery and backup service handles the rebuild.
Because cameras, alarms and door controls protect the same things your firewall does: the drug safe, the cash and patient records. The Authority's guidelines require an intrusion alarm monitored around the clock by an appropriately graded monitoring centre, covering every area where medicines and poisons are kept, including the dispensary, drug safe, professional service area and storerooms, and recommend duress alarms. Unsupervised dispensary doors should self-close and need a key, code or swipe card from outside, and remote-viewing CCTV is suggested to cut false alarms and confirm whether an offender is on site. Key IT designs and installs CCTV, alarms and access control, so your recorder and door controller sit on a secured network rather than beside the dispensary PC with a factory password.
Yes. We look after everything they depend on: workstations, network, the prescription exchange connection, accounts and backups. When a fault sits inside the software, we raise it with Fred IT Group and follow it through.
Add a 4G or 5G failover link. It takes over when the main service drops, so eScripts can still be retrieved, and we monitor the primary link so we see an outage as it happens.
It does. Victoria's SafeScript setup guide has notifications enabled in Fred Dispense on each dispensing computer, and dispensing software must stay connected to a prescription exchange service for SafeScript to receive records. We check both on every new or rebuilt workstation.
Yes. The usual small business carve-out does not extend to private sector health service providers, and the OAIC names pharmacists as an example.
Yes. We design and install CCTV, intrusion and duress alarms and dispensary access control with the guidelines in mind, and can advise on graded alarm monitoring.
No. Managed IT runs month to month at a fixed price per user, with no lock-in contract, so a change of ownership or a new store never leaves you stuck with an old agreement.
We will check whether your dispensary, counter and cameras could ride out ransomware, a dropped connection or a break-in without losing a day of trade. Call 1300 053 948 or book a free cybersecurity health check.
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