Digital prescriptions in Argentina: what a dentist needs in order to prescribe
How digital prescriptions work for dentists in Argentina with OCLÜ: legally valid issuing, a drug database and sending to the patient. And what changes in Spain with the SREP prescription.
· 2 min read
- digital prescriptions
- Argentina
- Spain
- dentistry
What a dental digital prescription is
A digital prescription is one issued from an electronic system, carrying the details of the clinician, the patient and the medication. In Argentina, OCLÜ issues it through the e-prescription platform it is integrated with: the prescription comes out as a PDF with the clinician's licence number and, if they uploaded it to their profile, their signature.
For the dentist, the practical difference is that the prescription comes out of the patient's medical history, with the medication taken from an up-to-date database, and reaches the patient over WhatsApp or email without photographing a piece of paper.
How it works in Argentina with OCLÜ
OCLÜ issues legally valid digital prescriptions: the clinician picks the medication from an up-to-date database, fills in the dosage, and the prescription comes out as a PDF with their licence number and, if uploaded, their signature. A prescription that has already been issued can be cloned into a new one, so the instruction you repeat — the post-extraction antibiotic, say — is not typed from scratch.
The prescription is kept on the patient's record and sent by email or WhatsApp, with the message and the link to the PDF already written. That leaves a record of what was prescribed, when, and by whom, which paper never guaranteed.
What changes in Spain: the SREP prescription
In Spain, OCLÜ works with the private SREP prescription in its prescription-book form: the professional body gives the dentist a pre-numbered book as an XML file, the clinician loads it into OCLÜ and every prescription issued takes a number from that book. The dental bodies of Pontevedra and A Coruña are set up today; others are added on request.
The SREP prescription is generated as a PDF with a DataMatrix code; the clinician prints it, signs it by hand and the patient takes it to the pharmacy. As in Argentina, the prescription is kept on the patient's record and the PDF can be downloaded again whenever it is needed.
Why the prescription has to come out of the medical history
There are apps that issue digital prescriptions separately from your management software. The problem is the same as with any standalone tool: the prescription does not stay on the record, you have to look the patient up twice, and it gets sent from a personal phone.
With prescriptions built into the dental software, there is one circuit: appointment, clinical note, prescription and sending, all on the same record and under each user's own permissions. It is the ALL IN ONE idea applied to one concrete clinical act.