It was a big week in primary care this week as electronic prescribing ratcheted up, secure messaging got a boost and a private equity firm played a blinder and snapped up a practice management software vendor from under everyone's noses. It ended with an emerging scandal in international health research, as The Lancet was forced to retract an article amid what appears to be a fabricated data set used in a now infamous hydroxychloroquine study for COVID-19.

The week got off to an interesting start with pharmacy software vendor Minfos announcing it was working with fellow EBOS Group company TerryWhite Chemmart to pilot electronic prescription capabilities in the regional NSW town of Armidale. NSW and Victoria are among several jurisdictions that have passed regulations allowing eScripts to be issued and dispensed, and later in the week PMS vendor Zedmed got together with Chemist Warehouse, Simple Retail's Aquarius dispensing system and the prescription exchanges eRx and MediSecure to test out their eScript capabilities in two Melbourne general practices and two pharmacies.