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GP electronic prescription messages and the ePharmacy ‘Adapter’

Potential issue in the use of the ePharmacy Adapter leading to the build up of Adapter audit messages resulting in significant disk space consumption on practice servers.
The alert was issued on Tuesday 22nd June 2010. The full text of the alert email can be seen below (including the resolution steps and instructions).

• The Adapter update self extracting zip file to be applied to practice servers (resolution step 2).
• Installation guide on copying and running the update.

Full text of alert email issued on Tuesday 22nd June 2010
GPASS and the ePharmacy programme would like to bring to your attention a potential issue in the use of the ePharmacy Adapter.
[Information note: The ePharmacy Adapter was made available to all GP system suppliers as an optional method of supporting the sending of electronic messages from the GP system to the ePharmacy Message Store (ePMS).This alert relates specifically to GPASS. (An update in relation to the other suppliers will follow)]
Potential issue
Regular archiving of the audit information that is created as part of the Adapter message processing is mandatory. Very recently, on some GP practice sites, it has been identified that either:
1 - The automatic archive task has not run regularly resulting in a build up of audit messages waiting to be archived. With update pack 2.5 of GPASS an alternative archive process has been delivered and this has run possibly generating very large audit extract files (as the backlog of audit messages are archived) consuming a significant amount of disk space.
2 - The archive has run regularly and the audit extract files have built up to consume a significant amount of disk space.

Potential impact

Primary impact
In either case (1 or 2) significant disk space may have been consumed on the practice server – which may lead to issues with server stability
Secondary impact
In case 1 the Adapter database will grow in size until its maximum size of 2GB is reached at which point ePharmacy messaging will stop.

Resolution
There are two stages to this resolution:
Resolution step 1
Purpose: To address any immediate impact on practice servers where insufficient disk space remains.
Action: If a practice server is discovered to have an insufficient amount of disk space then the Adapter audit extract files can be deleted to free up disk space.
(See resolution stage 1 details section below for location and name format of Adapter audit extract files)
Resolution step 2
Purpose: Long term prevention of the build up of audit information and extracted files. To disable the Adapter audit function and remove the build up of audit data from the Adapter.
An update to the Adapter database is available that, once deployed on the practice server, will disable the audit function so that no further audit build up will occur and clear down the build up of data in the adapter audit tables. [Note – this does NOT delete
Action: visit X to access download Adapter update to GPASS server (instructions available at the address and below). Extract the upgrade files and run the upgrade batch file.
(See resolution step 2 details section below for instructions receiving and applying the Adapter upgrade).

Notes
1) Removal of Adapter audit information is sanctioned as a pragmatic resolution to this Potential Issue in the short term only. The audit policies for users of ePharmacy messaging and services is under review.
.

Resolution step 1 details - location of Adapter audit files:
GPASS
On the GPASS database server
In location C:\ePharmacy_archive
Delete files named ‘AdapterAudit<date>.txt’
Note: some Board may have changed the above default location. The GPASS file “adapterdir.config” contains a file path entry with the location of the audit extract files.

Resolution step 2 details – receiving Adapter database upgrade and applying:
The Adapter upgrade will be made available as a self extracting zipped executable.
• From the practice server visit X And click on ‘link’
• Choose to save the file to a location on the GPASS practice server (e.g. C:\Program Files\NHS Scotland ePharmacy)
• Double click the executable to unzip the contents
• Locate files ‘UpdateAdapterDatabase.bat’ in unzipped directory “Adapter DBUpdates v3.4.3”
• Double click on ‘UpdateAdapterDatabase.bat’ to upgrade database.
Alternatively a Board’s support function may choose to receive the download ‘centrally’ and use their own mechanism and infrastructure for applying to each practice server.