Why is the implementation of electronic prescriptions still 'stuck in place'?

This is the timeline stated in Circular 26 of the Ministry of Health on regulations for prescribing outpatient pharmaceutical and biological drugs - effective from July 1, 2025.

According to the new roadmap, all hospitals must complete electronic prescriptions by October 1, 2025. Other medical facilities must complete electronic prescription connectivity by January 1, 2026.

This is the third time the Ministry of Health has had to adjust the implementation deadline due to slow progress. The most recent time, Circular 04/2022 stipulated the completion deadline as June 30, 2023, but most medical facilities have not yet met the requirements.

Electronic prescriptions are an integral part of electronic medical records and an important tool for monitoring prescription and prescription drug sales nationwide. The national prescription system is now operational, allowing transparent tracking of each prescription through the identification codes of doctors, medical facilities and prescriptions. Data is stored centrally and can process up to 600 million prescriptions per year.

When patients come to the pharmacy, they agree to share their prescriptions through the system, the pharmacy sells the correct prescription and reports the quantity sold. This helps eliminate unauthentic handwritten prescriptions, expired prescriptions, or the situation of buying medicine multiple times with one prescription.

Mr. Vuong Anh Duong, Deputy Director of the Department of Medical Examination and Treatment Management, Ministry of Health, assessed that this is a huge step forward in controlling the sale of drugs without prescription, especially antibiotics.

When the prescription is updated to the system, the pharmacy will check the QR code before dispensing, helping to accurately track the type of medicine sold and detect errors, especially with antibiotics. In the long term, electronic prescriptions are also the foundation for building electronic health records for each person, serving continuous treatment management.

Electronic prescription in electronic medical records at Bach Mai Hospital.

According to Mr. Nguyen Huu Trong, General Secretary of the Vietnam Medical Informatics Association, the country currently has about 60,000 medical examination and treatment facilities, but only more than 12,000 facilities regularly implement electronic prescription connectivity.

Many end-level hospitals are still not fully connected, often only applying to insurance prescriptions, while service examination orders are still done manually or not connected. The private sector is even weaker, with about 40,000 facilities not yet connected.

The situation is similar at the pharmacy level. Of the more than 218 million electronic prescriptions, only about 3.6 million outpatient prescriptions have drug sales reports from pharmacies.

Many facilities still use paper prescriptions, prescriptions of unknown origin, or prescriptions on software that are not up to standard and not connected to the national system.

According to Mr. Trong, connecting prescription software with the Ministry of Health system is “not technically difficult” and “does not change the medical examination and treatment process”. However, the biggest obstacle lies in the fear of transparency.

Many facilities are afraid of being monitored and discovered for violations such as: prescribing without authority, selling drugs without prescription, prescribing drug abuse... Meanwhile, large hospitals lack motivation to implement because they do not have direct financial benefits and are not regularly inspected and monitored.

Although the legal framework is complete, so far no facility has been punished for not complying with regulations - while a decree on administrative sanctions has been issued.

Mr. Trong said that for the implementation to be truly effective, it is necessary to step up propaganda for people to only buy drugs with prescriptions and strengthen supervision of pharmacies. At the same time, the Government needs to add sanctions with enough deterrence to force both medical facilities and pharmacies to comply with regulations on prescribing and selling electronic drugs.

Source: https://baolangson.vn/vi-sao-viec-trien-khai-don-thuoc-dien-tu-van-giam-chan-tai-cho-5053970.html