*Deposit in custody into right author's national address ;ex-p: 128507

Miguel María Alberdi, pharmacist – National Identity Document No. 11.315.137

License number: 9243

Address: Arcos 4057, 1st floor (1429), City of Buenos Aires. Argentine

E-mail: tap@farmakos.com  – Te: +54-11-47035929

This is an innovative system where physicians can prescribe drugs on-line and send prescriptions via e-mail. These prescriptions are authorized at drugstores through an on-line prescription confirmation system.

Any physician willing to use this system must have his/her own website, with a domain registered with the local NIC and with the National Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health will publish the physician's data and website address or domain in a list available on-line.

The physician uses a software that allows for: a) preparing the prescription and generating a password included in such prescription; b) sending the prescription to the patient via e-mail; c) sending a copy of the prescription to a special e-mail address in his/her website, which is used to store prescription copies and is accessible through the password previously generated; and d) receiving the respective authorization from the drugstore that received the patient's original prescription. The special e-mail address must be located in the physician’s website, so that extraction of the copy may be executed from anywhere. Steps a), b) and c) may be performed from the physician’s computer only for safety purposes, although they may also be performed from the physician’s website, so that he/she may log in with a secret password and prepare prescriptions from anywhere. Operation:

The physician already knows and has personally met the patient, being able to follow up on the patient’s evolution on-line. With this system, the physician can prescribe any drugs using totally valid digital prescriptions.

1) The physician is contacted by the patient on-line via a special chat page or by phone, and e-mails the prescription to the patient. The prescription must contain, besides the physician’s data and the actual prescribed drug, a password that is different for each prescription or group of prescriptions related to only one medical appointment. It also contains the physician’s website.

2) A copy of the prescription is sent to a special e-mail box in the physician's website, with a number established by the physician following a certain correlativity, and the phrase: "Confirmation Copy". This e-mail address is used only for that patient and that specific medical appointment. It is similar to those used to store e-mails in the server. Such e-mail address can only be accessed by typing the password included in the prescription.

To create this confirmation copy, the physician includes a secret password together with the other data in the prescription. If the physician does not include this password, the original prescription is created anyway and can be even e-mailed, but it cannot be validated at the drugstore because no confirmation copy has been generated. This is an extra precaution against any potential hacker that may want to enter the physician's prescriptions website: although the hacker may enter the website, he/she will not be able to generate any confirmation copy, since he/she should first know that a second password is needed. For this purpose, the form is designed in such a way that no one can guess that a second password is needed to create the copy.

NOTE: If the patient goes to the physician’s office for an appointment, then the physician obviously will not e-mail the original prescription to the patient but will prints it and give it to the patient right away. However, if the physician prescribes drugs sold only under filed prescription or through health insurance entities or pre-paid medical care companies, then it will be essential for the physician to have an Internet connection and include the second password so that the confirmation copy is generated and sent to his/her website’s special e-mail address.

3) When the patient takes the printed prescription received by e-mail to the drugstore, the pharmacist must verify the following: a) The website appearing in the prescription must correspond to an authorized physician. For this purpose, the pharmacist goes to the National Ministry of Health’s website and looks at the list of qualified physicians and their respective websites. b) The prescription must correspond to an actual prescription issued by such physician. For this purpose, the pharmacist goes to the physician’s website, enters the prescription’s password and has immediate access to the prescription copy, which contains the following title: "CONFIRMATION COPY" and a number. Then, the pharmacist prints this confirmation copy and attaches it to the original prescription. Both copies are filed together, *and are considered a legally valid prescription before the Ministry of Health.

a. For validation purposes, the prescription validation or confirmation software used in the physician’s website must clean or delete the copy from the inbox after accessing it once (similarly to Outlook's clean-up of the inbox after picking up e-mails). Thus, the confirmation copy can only be accessed once. Such confirmation copy, besides all prescription data and the title "CONFIRMATION COPY", contains a number, so it cannot be used again to validate another prescription. Obviously, the pharmacist cannot file more than one prescription containing the same password, the same drugs and the same number of confirmation copy, since this would indicate that illegal copies have been made.

b. If the physician issues more than one prescription so that the patient may, for example, acquire the drugs gradually, then the patient must take all printed prescriptions to the drugstore. The pharmacist will print the respective confirmation copies for all of them and issue stamped vouchers for the drugs the patient is not taking for the moment. All prescriptions will be filed with their respective confirmation copies obtained at the physician’s website. The physician creates a different number for each copy of any prescription –although the prescription may be the same– and such numbers follow a certain correlativity only known by the physician. All prescription copies –for the same drug or not– go to only one inbox with only one password, since this inbox contains all the copies of all the prescriptions issued to that patient at that appointment. Then, when the patient goes to the drugstore, the pharmacist enters the respective password to access such inbox and obtains all prescription copies at once, *and such inbox is deleted. To avoid any software errors, it is convenient that the pharmacist, after printing the copies, log out and then log in again entering the password. Thus, the pharmacist will verify that access has been denied (or the inbox has been deleted, depending on the particular software design).

c. If the prescription is under any of List I, II or III categories, the physician must use a prescription booklet provided by the National Ministry of Health, containing a special numeration controlled by such Ministry. Each physician is allowed a certain number of prescriptions per period with the title: "LIST ____ PSYCHOTROPIC DRUG", or "LIST ____ NARCOTIC", which are correlatively numbered. The physician uses them following the same mechanism detailed above. The patient cannot print more than one prescription, because only one prescription can be validated at the drugstore. The physician cannot use the same prescription (with the same number) twice, since drugstores, from time to time, send copies of such prescriptions to the Ministry of Health, which will detect whether two prescriptions have been issued with the same number, or whether unnumbered prescriptions have been issued.

d. In order to facilitate the inspection of these prescriptions distributed and controlled by the Ministry of Health, the inspector will allocate an inbox and a password to each physician in the Ministry’s website, sending to such inbox copies of the prescription booklets already sent to the physician. This inbox is located in the Ministry’s website, and can only be accessed by inspectors, since they are the only authorized persons that know each physician’s password. Upon logging in the physician’s inbox, the inspector verifies that the numbers of the prescriptions sent by the drugstores correspond to such physician, thus deducting them from the prescription booklet allocated to that physician. The number of prescriptions in the inbox must not exceed the number of prescriptions actually sent, and numbers must coincide.

e. Drugstores incur in a crime if they accept both the original prescription and the confirmation copy directly from the patient, since the confirmation copy must be obtained by the pharmacist. (*) See drugstore’s data in the confirmation copy.

f. This prescription validation system is also useful to validate prescriptions from health insurance entities or pre-paid medical care companies. In this case, the pharmacist does not file both valid copies –original copy and confirmation copy– but follows the traditional procedure corresponding to this type of prescriptions: the pharmacist attaches the drug’s die cut and the ticket to the prescription, fills it in with the patient’s data and has it signed by the patient. Then, the pharmacist sends, from time to time, all prescriptions to the health insurance entity or pre-paid medical care company to obtain the respective payment.

In this case, the validation system is carried out before the health insurance entity or pre-paid medical care company and not before the Ministry of Health, as is the case with prescription drugs such as psychotropic drugs. Obviously, if the prescription from the health insurance entity or pre-paid medical care company contains psychotropic drugs, a valid pair copy (duplicate) must be printed to be filed at the drugstore.

Important: The software deletes all confirmation copies of prescriptions from the inbox. We suggest transferring such copies to a filing folder instead of deleting them permanently. In this folder, the physician will see the copies of all the prescriptions he/she issued and that have already been served in the drugstore. In other words, the physician will know whether the patient bought the drugs, where, when and at what time. Thus, the physician may efficiently manage his/her prescriptions, classifying them by health insurance entity or pre-paid medical care company, by contents, etc. The physician may also know his/her patients' behavior regarding their compliance with the drugs prescribed.

(*) Before entering the password, the pharmacist must fill in a form that contains: the drugstore's name, address and telephone number, as well as the employee's code. In this way, the password will only be activated if the above data is entered. These data appear in the printed confirmation copy. This is very important, since it prevents any drugstore owner that owns several drugstores to file a valid pair copy (duplicate) in anyone of his/her other drugstores. Additionally, the physician obtains more information on the patient, since by just looking at the confirmation copy in this folder, he/she will know:

1) if the patient acquired the drugs;

2) date and time of acquisition; and

3) the drugstore's name, address and telephone number, as well as the employee that assisted the patient.

The confirmation copy that goes automatically to the physician’s inbox when sending the original prescription to the patient contains a number only known by the physician (following a certain correlativity). The purpose of this number is to individualize each confirmation copy in the event of potential forged copies to the same patient (if both copies are identical and have the same password but have a different confirmation copy number, then they are considered valid).

(*) The last boxes are intended to indicate the confirmation copy number and secret passwords. This form is used only with respect to drugs sold under filed prescriptions or when they are acquired through a health insurance entity or pre-paid medical care company. In other words, it is used when it is necessary to generate a confirmation copy.

Confirmation Copy Model for Medical Prescriptions: The pharmacist files it together with the original prescription. An identical copy is kept by the physician in his/her folder. The pharmacist also keeps it in his/her computer to ensure double recording:

1) A fake physician cannot prescribe drugs under this system, since he/she cannot have his/her own legal website registered with the Ministry of Health and drugstores will reject his/her prescriptions for not appearing in the Ministry’s websites list.

Fraud potentiality = NONE.

2) The patient receiving the original prescription cannot print more than one, since only one prescription can be validated.

Fraud potentiality = NONE.

3) Although a specialized hacker may enter a physician’s prescription website, he/she will not be able to issue any prescription, since the hacker should have to "guess" how the prescription form is filled in. The form contains many secret codes established by the physician, such as: a keyword must be entered on a certain part of the form only known by the physician; a specific number on another part; a special sign on another, and so on. This can be easily filled in by the authorized physician since the form is only used by him/her. The only way to hack the form is to have the physician reveal all the keywords, numbers and signs.

The system is highly secure. Anyway, there is still another security option: the physician may have the prescription software in his/her own PC, and not in his/her website or on Internet. Also, the physician might use a notebook (laptop) to issue prescriptions from anywhere.

Fraud potentiality = NONE.

4) With regard to official prescriptions distributed by the Ministry of Health, the same procedure applies. In this case too, the physician cannot issue two equal prescriptions (with the same number), since drugstores send the prescriptions to the Ministry from time to time (the same validated prescriptions pairs filed in the drugstore).

Fraud potentiality = NONE.

5) The pharmacist (or drugstore owner) cannot file validated prescription pairs (duplicates) under the same confirmation copy number, since this would be an indication of an illegal prescription printing. Additionally, the prescription would also have the same date and time the patient was assisted at the drugstore.

Fraud potentiality = NONE.

6) The pharmacist or drugstore owner having several drugstores cannot file a validated prescription pair (duplicate) in another one of his/her drugstores, since the confirmation copy contains the name of the drugstore, besides the date, time and employee’s code. Fraud potentiality = NONE.