Solution Information:

Title : PharmaSheba: An App for Prescription Authentication, Management, and Delivery in Bangladesh

Description : Our goal is to develop an integrated, streamlined app (both iOS and Android) for authentication, management, and delivery of prescription medications in Bangladesh. To provide a little background, prescription errors are fairly common in our country because of lack of knowledge as well as non-availability of state-of-the-art pharmacy practice setup. Hand-written prescriptions from physicians are often deciphered incorrectly in the pharmacy in the absence of qualified pharmacists. These problems can be eliminated through digitization. In accordance with the vision of our honorable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to transform the country into a Digital Bangladesh by making information technology and its benefits available to every citizen including the underprivileged and the marginalized, we seek to play our part in digitization of the healthcare sector and develop an innovative, efficient, patient-oriented, and ICT-based service that will reduce prescription errors, decrease treatment costs, and save lives. It’s particularly important to build a mobile app-based prescription vetting and delivery system in developing countries like Bangladesh, as patients often do not have a single primary care provider. They directly go to different healthcare providers (general practitioners, specialist physicians, pharmacists, pharmaceutical technicians, etc.), and these providers don’t have the opportunity to talk to each other before writing prescriptions. Consequently, there’s greater risk for polypharmacy, adverse drug interactions, and incorrect dosing that could lead to injury and even death especially in the most vulnerable group, the elderly patients. In fact, such incidents have frequently been reported in the press. Moreover, given the current COVID-19 pandemic situation in the country and emergence of pharmacies as potential hotspots for community transmission, developing a safe and reliable ordering and home delivery service for prescription medicines is absolutely essential. The proposed app will allow each user to log in either as a patient or as a healthcare provider (physician, pharmacist, pharmaceutical technician, etc.) to provide Rx or order medication in a systematic, convenient manner. When an individual logs-in for the first time as a new patient, s/he’ll be asked to answer a series of simple questions about his/her personal details, demographic information, address(es) for delivery, health information including drug allergies, family history of chronic diseases etc. Using phone’s camera s/he’ll be asked to take a picture of the current prescriptions requested to be filled, a picture of the bottle and/or strip of any/all of the current medicines (which needs to be reordered for completeness), possibly scan the barcode of any current or previous medication (if he happens to have the packaging) and enter associated dates of use. This will generate a unique barcode in the app as well as an electronic health record for the patient. When a physician wants to prescribe any medication to the above individual, he’ll have to log in as a healthcare provider. Then he’ll have to scan the barcode from the patient’s phone to start prescribing. The physician will also be asked to enter relevant patient information and details for the prescribed medicines. Once a prescription is entered by either the patient or his/her physician, a partnering pharmacist will be notified. He’ll log into the app as a healthcare provider. The pharmacist will have access to all prescriptions of an individual patient because every physician providing care to this patient will be using the same app to write prescriptions. Once the pharmacist checks for and examines the prescription against a set of criteria including dosage, drug interaction, drug allergies, risk factors, polypharmacy, etc., and finally modifies/approves the prescription, it’ll be sent to a partnering pharmacy retail shop near the patient’s delivery address. Pharmacy technicians at this location will prepare the medication for delivery. The delivery person will then follow the no-contact delivery protocol to deliver the medication and leave it at the doorstep of the patient. The patient will receive an alert from the app after the medicine is delivered. The app will include a reporting feature for pharmacovigilance. Every time a patient experiences a side effect from a drug, he can record the symptoms in the app. If the patient experiences severe side effects, a participating physician will be notified immediately for intervention. Data on side effects will be compiled for each drug every week and shared with the drug manufacturer. A monthly report on adverse effects will also be generated and sent to the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA). This app will allow physicians, pharmacists and other allied health care providers to work remotely and create new jobs for pharmacy technicians and delivery workers. Most importantly, the app will enable rigorous vetting of prescriptions and protect patients from adverse drug interactions, allergies and possible exposure to infectious diseases. This app will not only help us tackle the COVID-19 pandemic but also prepare ourselves for future epidemics/pandemics. We would like to initiate this service as soon as possible to fight the current pandemic as well as to commemorate the birth centennial of the father of the nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Category : Mobile App