translated from Spanish: 35 million medicines in the waste: is there a need to move forward in the unification of the prescription system?

The Contraloria revealed in a recent report that a number of health services eliminated 35 million drug units between 2017 and 2018. “The audit was intended to conduct a review of the drug disposal process at the national level in the 29 health services and their 191 dependent hospital facilities across the country,” the brief states.
The amount would correspond to 4 thousand 464 million pesos. The document further details that 96.39% was due to their expiration, while another 359 million pesos are products dating back to 2015.
The health services with the most medicines discarded are Maule, Antofagasta, Concepción, O’Higgins, Metropolitano Sur, Oriente and Norte.
The reviewing body detailed that the warehouses found expired products that were not even recorded in the inventory or in the accounting to the above, that in many instances there are no procedures for the destruction of medicines that are considered drugs.
“The big problem that today is that there is no unified system and there are no systems that talk to each other, what we are looking for is to interconnect all the actors of that health system both the prescriber who issues the prescription and the dispenser that is the pharmacy and with this strengthen the issue of the supply of medicines” Pablo Jaña said, CEO of Recemed.
The expert commits that the use of inter-operable electronic prescription systems – so that it can be connected for example to a clinic, To Cenabast and also to pharmacies – could help improve the situation.
This adds up to other high amounts in lost drugs. In November 2020, the CGR discovered that the state’s Supply Plant eliminated medicines worth more than $3.3 billion between January 1, 2017 and December 2018.

Original source in Spanish