Real-time prescription monitoring enjoys rare unified support from doctors, pharmacists and patients, but there is not a huge evidence base for it.

Despite this, Australia is taking steps towards creating a usable system, including the Safe Script trial in Victoria late last year.

But what if prescription tracking doesn’t improve health outcomes and just bombards GPs with useless pop-ups?

One of the largest US studies on the topic was published recently. The researchers looked at prescription monitoring systems and the number of admissions to drug treatment clinics related to prescription misuse in the years after monitoring was introduced to various states.