The Ministry of Health of Ukraine adapts best world e-prescribing practices

On July 25-27, 2018 the Safe, Affordable, and Effective Medicines for Ukrainians (SAFEMed) project organized a series of workshops looking at the options to improve access to medicines in Ukraine. The key target audience included representatives from the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, the National Health Service of Ukraine (NHSU) and the SOE eHealth. Michael Gremillion, an international expert on pharmaceuticals and health technologies, presented all available functional solutions to be integrated into eHealth through e-prescribing.

The implementation of the electronic prescription system is an important step in the eHealth development. The system will eliminate paper prescriptions, simplify many planning, statistical and logistical processes. This will contribute to improving access of Ukrainian patients to medicines and ensuring the continuation of treatment.

"The e-prescription system is one of the most important components for ensuring the continuation of treatment by improving medicine provision to patients. For doctors, e-prescription will be a useful tool for deciding on a treatment plan. Having access to the e-prescription functionalities and the patient's electronic medical records, doctors will see the full picture allowing them to select the most appropriate treatment for each patient. In addition, the e-prescription system will help the NHSU, pharmacies and hospitals to facilitate the swiftest possible exchange of information on payments for medicines. The e-prescription will produce reports to provide the Ministry of Health with accurate statistics and information for pharmaceutical monitoring and budgeting of relevant programs," noted Roman Ilyk, deputy Minister of Health of Ukraine.

According to Roman Ilyk, the first step to achieving these goals is to integrate the drug ID module into the system: INN, release and dosage forms.

"New technology is a tool that allows making the right decisions. Currently, doctors make decisions on the basis of either macrodata provided by the regions or what the patient says. This information is not always accurate. The development of the eHealth system and the integration of e-prescription will provide doctors and other specialists with precise data, allowing them to draw more specific conclusions taking into account the patient’s age, medical history, number of visits to the doctor, previously prescribed medicines, etc. I would like to emphasize that this will improve the effectiveness and efficiency of many healthcare processes," underlined Michael Gremillion, an expert with over 25 years of experience in the development and implementation of pharmaceutical systems, who is actively engaged in the development of an electronic prescription system in Ukraine under the SAFEMed project.

Mr. Gremillion presented the best cases of e-prescribing projects implemented in different countries, and the workshop participants learnt about useful features and functions of the electronic systems and how they could help overcome certain challenges faced by the Ministry of Health in providing patients with safe, high-quality and affordable medicines.