Request to promote electronic prescription, prescription connection and prescription drug sales

Request to promote electronic prescription, prescription connection and prescription drug sales - Photo: VGP/HM

After the case of counterfeit medicine production and trading was discovered in some localities, the Government Office issued two official dispatches (No. 3700/VPCP-KGVX and 4028/VPCP-KGVX) conveying the direction of Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long, requesting the Ministry of Health to continue to direct the promotion and improvement of the efficiency of connecting drug supply facilities, electronic medical records, and electronic prescriptions according to the Prime Minister's instructions in Directive No. 23/CT-TTg dated August 23, 2018, Directive No. 07/CT-TTg dated March 14, 2025 and in Official Dispatch No. 668/VPCP-KGVX dated January 24, 2025.

At the same time, continue to direct the promotion of electronic prescriptions, connect electronic prescriptions on the "National information system on prescription management and prescription drug sales" and strictly direct the implementation of prescription drug sales.

Do electronic prescriptions prevent counterfeit drugs?

According to Mr. Nguyen Huu Trong, General Secretary of the Vietnam Medical Informatics Association, the implementation of the National Information System for managing prescriptions and selling prescription drugs aims to connect all prescriptions from all medical examination and treatment facilities (public and private) nationwide with specific identification codes of doctors, identification codes of medical examination and treatment facilities and identification codes for each prescription to the general warehouse of the Ministry of Health .

On that basis, the system will share the prescription (with the patient's permission when coming to the drug retail facility) with each retail facility's software, so that the facility can dispense and sell drugs according to the prescription and receive reports on the quantity dispensed and sold on each prescription.

This will help avoid the situation where patients buy medicine with unclear prescriptions (unauthenticated hand-written prescriptions of unknown origin); buy medicine multiple times with prescriptions that have been sold out or buy medicine with expired prescriptions (the validity period of prescriptions is stipulated in Circular 52/2017/TT-BYT is 5 days)...

However, the health sector's promotion of medical examination and treatment facilities to connect prescriptions nationwide is still slow. Although the deadline for the group of medical examination and treatment facilities specified in Circular 04/2022/TT-BYT is June 30, 2023, the facilities must connect prescriptions.

Up to now, according to the new System report, there are 11,213 medical examination and treatment facilities of all types that regularly connect prescriptions out of a total of more than 60,000 facilities operating nationwide. Many large end-line hospitals have not yet connected prescriptions or only connected insurance prescriptions, while prescriptions for examination and treatment on demand are not connected.

Most private medical facilities have not yet implemented prescription linkage (about 40,000 facilities have not yet). Many drug retail facilities, including pharmacies in hospitals, have not yet implemented the sale of prescription drugs using electronic prescription codes as prescribed by the Circular (out of a total of more than 218 million prescriptions that have been linked, only more than 3.6 million outpatient prescriptions were reported to have been sold by drug retail facilities).

Up to this point, many medical facilities still prescribe drugs on paper, even prescriptions of unknown origin, prescribe on software but do not meet the standards of Circular 04/2022/TT-BYT or prescribe on software but do not connect to the system.

According to Mr. Nguyen Huu Trong, the implementation of electronic prescriptions and connection of electronic prescriptions from the software of medical examination and treatment facilities to the National Information System for managing prescriptions and selling prescription drugs is not difficult at all. The software proactively implements and does not create any new processes in the medical examination and treatment of doctors.

Entering electronic prescription codes into the retail pharmacy management software to sell prescription drugs is also convenient and saves time when each facility sells drugs.

"100% of drug retail establishments have had software since 2019 according to the provisions of Circular 02/2018/TT-BYT. The establishments do not incur additional costs or time in implementing this work. However, the establishments have not yet fully implemented it (especially the medical examination and treatment establishments). This is one of the reasons why the management of prescriptions and the sale of prescription drugs has not been implemented and is also the reason why the market for fake drugs, fake functional foods... continues," said the Vietnam Medical Informatics Association.

Recently, the police force discovered a ring trafficking more than 20 types of fake drugs, of which more than 1/3 were prescription drugs, with a total transaction value of more than 200 billion VND.

The widespread sale of prescription drugs without a prescription is also a cause of antibiotic resistance in our country.

The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that drug resistance is one of the 10 leading causes of death worldwide. In Vietnam, about 93% of prescription drug purchases are made without a prescription. Vietnam is among the 10 countries with the highest rates of drug resistance in the world.

Hien Minh

Source: https://baochinhphu.vn/yeu-cau-day-manh-ke-don-thuoc-dien-tu-lien-thong-don-thuoc-va-ban-thuoc-theo-don-102250511080510956.htm