Pharmaceutical News
The launch of a medication APP and the cloud-based medication record system
2015/06/08

Reported by Chen Li-Ting and Lee Shu-Jen


In order to improve medication safety, the TFDA has contracted out the design of an APP for the integration of medication services.  With this APP, the public can easily reserve their medication from a nearby pharmacy by simply scanning the 2-D bar code on their prescriptions. 


The TFDA commissioned the Taiwan Pharmacist Association and the ChungHwa Pharmaceutical Research Foundation to develop an APP for integrating medication services.  Tam Yen-Huei, President of the ChungHwa Pharmaceutical Research Foundation, expressed that patients can now reserve their medication from any pharmacy of their own choice by scanning the 2-D bar code on the prescription.  The other functions of this APP include reminding patients to take medicine, providing medicine information, such as dosage, indications, etc. 


Tam Yen-Huei expressed that many patients have a habit of shopping around hospitals.  He hopes the launch of an integrated medication service can correct this bad habit.  For patients who have more than two chronic diseases or hold two prescriptions including one repeated prescription for chronic disease, they are able to request any satellite pharmacy to double check whether their medication is free from duplication and drug interaction.  At present, there are 260 satellite pharmacies; and the authority will try to expand the number to 300-350 pharmacies. 


The NHIA also launched the NHI Cloud-based Medication Record System.  It takes only 15 seconds for doctors to access patients’ medication records in the past 3 months.  This will prevent duplicate prescriptions.  


Cheng Bai-Chun, an official of the NHIA, expressed that by using this Cloud-based Medication Record System, doctors can help patients in preventing overdose and adverse reactions.  The cloud-based system will save communication time and effort for retrieving patients’ medication records. 


【2015-06-02/ United Evening News】