[concerned_user]

Before internet was commonplace you would have to go to a doctor and get a paper prescription which was sometimes done on a paper with watermarks and verification was that this piece of paper has a stamp or a seal on it and doctor's signature.

There were more forgeries with paper prescription than there is with online system.

[dorfsmay]

Are there provinces with electronic prescriptions? I always get a piece of paper (in Alberta).

I've had cases where the pharmacy (indeed London Drugs) phoned the doctor to ask them to fax a renewal.

[burutthrow1234]

In Ontario my doctor sends prescriptions "electronically". In practice it's not clear whether this is like an email, or whether someone behind the scenes prints out the prescription and faxes it. Apparently the local clinic has a team that is solely responsible for faxing things on behalf of the doctors.

[concerned_user]

Here in europe it is a government database where all the clinics and pharmacies are connected to, so doctor essentially creates a record in the database.

When you visit pharmacy they ask for id and enter your id number system shows them all your active prescriptions and past ones as well, which sometimes helps when your prescription is not renewed for some reason they can give you a week supply while you sort it out.

[sofixa]

That depends on the country. In France it varies by doctor, some will use Doctolib (a great third party private company that does appointment scheduling, video consultations and digital prescriptions) which allows you to have a digital prescription that you click on a button in the app/website to share with a specific pharmacy, and when you get there they just get your social security card and... then print out your prescription, and scan and print on it how and when was it fulfilled. Others just give you an old fashioned hand written note, or print an A4 sheet of paper.

[swader999]

Alberta is pretty close to being electronic.

[dorfsmay]

That makes sense given the shift to electronic records that has happened in the last few years, but obviously not a factorwith this incident.

[prmoustache]

You can still ask and get those AFAIK.