Tighten drug management with electronic prescriptions and prescription drug sales

Illustration: Internet

The Government Office has just issued two official dispatches conveying the direction of Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long, requesting the Ministry of Health to continue to deploy the connection of drug supply facilities, electronic medical records, and electronic prescriptions according to the previous directions of the Prime Minister.

The Deputy Prime Minister requested the Ministry of Health to strictly direct the sale of prescription drugs through the “National Information System on Prescription Management and Prescription Drug Sales”. Up to now, only 11,213/60,000 medical examination and treatment facilities nationwide have regularly connected prescriptions. Many large hospitals only connect insurance prescriptions, ignoring service examination orders. Meanwhile, about 40,000 private medical facilities have almost not done so.

This situation has serious consequences, completely undermining the monitoring and management objectives of the system. More worryingly, the sale of drugs without prescription is still common and is a direct cause of antibiotic resistance. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), drug resistance is currently among the top 10 causes of death globally. Vietnam is currently among the top 10 countries with the highest rates of drug resistance in the world. In fact, up to 93% of prescription drug purchases in our country are without a prescription.

The market for counterfeit drugs and poor quality functional foods still persists, partly due to laxity in the prescription and drug sales system. Recently, authorities discovered a ring trading in more than 20 types of counterfeit drugs, with more than 1/3 of them being prescription drugs, with a total transaction value of up to 200 billion VND.

Source: https://baophuyen.vn/xa-hoi/202505/siet-chat-quan-ly-thuoc-bang-ke-don-dien-tu-va-ban-thuoc-theo-don-45f453c/