Many medical facilities still do not know what an ‘electronic prescription’ is
Circular 27/2021 of the Ministry of Health, effective from February 15, 2022, also clearly states the responsibility of medical examination and treatment facilities to send electronic prescriptions to the National Prescription System immediately after completing the process. medical examination and treatment for outpatients and before the patient is discharged from the hospital for inpatients; Send electronic prescriptions or electronic prescription codes to the patient or patient representative through electronic means.
Electronic prescriptions are created, displayed, digitally signed, shared and stored electronically. To prescribe electronic medicine, practitioners (such as doctors and nurses) and medical examination and treatment facilities need to be provided with identification codes and prescribing software.
Paper prescriptions are written and printed by machine to help people and pharmacists easily follow them. Photo: Pham Hai
Mr. Nguyen Huu Trong, General Secretary of the Vietnam Medical Informatics Association, is the person who directly supports health departments in implementing more than 600 training sessions on electronic prescriptions and linking prescriptions to the international system. dispensing and selling prescription drugs.
He said that up to now, all health departments have organized training on electronic prescriptions for public health facilities (from communes to provinces). These units have also linked prescriptions to the Ministry of Health’s system stably. “However, connecting correctly and with a sufficient number of prescriptions and selling drugs according to electronic prescription codes still requires the self-discipline of each medical examination and treatment facility and requires supervision and inspection by state management agencies,” Mr. Trong said.
For the private healthcare system (doctors in specialized clinics, general clinics, hospitals, pharmacy staff), the Vietnam Medical Informatics Association has coordinated training for 48/63 health departments. Mr. Trong said that among the 15 localities that have not yet implemented, there are Vinh Phuc, Hai Duong, Son La, Da Nang, Lam Dong, An Giang, Can Tho, Kien Giang, Bac Lieu…
“The first question I asked at nearly 600 training sessions for private health systems was: ‘Do you know what electronic prescribing or selling drugs by electronic prescription is?’ Most people don’t know or have never heard the information. Meanwhile, the question I receive the most and most commonly from practitioners is ‘When should I deploy electronic prescriptions?’, Mr. Trong told VietNamNet.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Health, Vietnam has 34 hospitals under the Ministry of Health, 7 hospitals under Universities of Medicine and Pharmacy (also under the Ministry of Health), nearly 500 provincial hospitals, nearly 11,400 medical stations. Commune health care. Regarding private healthcare, the country has more than 231 hospitals and tens of thousands of general and specialized clinics.
The Director of the Health Insurance Department under the Ministry of Health said that by 2023, the country will have more than 174.8 million health insurance medical examinations and treatments. This data does not include examinations without health insurance (including examinations with on-demand services) or examinations at private facilities that do not sign medical examination and treatment contracts with health insurance. Currently, our country does not have official statistics on the number of prescriptions per year or per day, but Mr. Trong estimates that each year there are at least 400-600 million prescriptions created. However, after more than 1.5 years of operation, the National Prescription System is only managing more than 110 million interconnected electronic prescriptions.
VietNamNet sources said that for central hospitals, currently about 50% of units have sent prescriptions to this system. A number of “connected single white” hospitals, including special-class hospitals, receive more than 7,000 outpatient examinations every day.
According to Mr. Trong, electronic prescription is simply creating a prescription on the software in accordance with the regulations on prescription forms and sending a copy of the prescription to the national system.
“Electronic prescribing is not difficult,” admitted the General Secretary of the Vietnam Medical Informatics Association. During the past 10 years, 100% of public medical facilities have implemented electronic prescriptions to connect with health insurance. Currently, some software providers also create simple software on a cloud computing platform to help medical examination and treatment facilities prescribe medication using smartphones and tablets, not necessarily. must use a computer.
Electronic prescriptions are a trend in advanced countries. Thoroughly implementing electronic prescriptions has practical significance for both state management agencies, medical facilities, physicians, patients and community values, especially in drug resistance prevention.
“Electronic prescriptions also completely eliminate handwritten prescriptions. There is no longer the situation of holding a prescription but not knowing what medicine it is because the doctor’s handwriting cannot be translated; Prevent counterfeiting of prescriptions because medical facilities and prescribers all have identification codes. The use of electronic prescriptions helps state management agencies actually manage the sale of prescription drugs, thereby improving people’s health lives,” Mr. Trong said.
Health Department – VietNamNet Newspaper opens a forum “The pain of translating doctor’s words on handwritten prescriptions”. Readers who have comments and suggestions should send them to bansuckhoe@vietnamnet.vn. Appropriate articles will be published according to editorial regulations.
Sincerely thank.
