Forget paper prescriptions and illegible handwriting – the near future could see patients obtaining their medication from their community pharmacy with a simple swipe of a card.

The White Paper on medicine rolled out yesterday by Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia proposes a robust IT system connecting doctors, hospitals and pharmacies in a bid to slash bureaucracy, improve accessibility (through a smoother transaction between doctors and pharmacies) and reduce medication errors.

The document proposes that patients registered for medicine entitlements under the Schedule V scheme, known as karta safra, will be provided with a ‘My Health Smart Card’.

There are currently 114,000 people registered under the Schedule V scheme.

The card would then be presented to the patient’s GP who would access their medical record. The prescription would be inputted electronically by the GP.

The patient could then proceed to his community pharmacy which forms part of the pharmacy-of-your-choice (POYC) system and present the pharmacist with his card.

This would reduce the waiting period.

Currently, paper-based prescription orders have to be deposited at the pharmacy before medicines can be collected by the patient.

A patient has to seek a new prescription after the expiry of his 56-day entitlement period. The White Paper is proposing that this timeframe be extended to six months.

“The situation between entities was a decadent one – despite the skills and potential of the workers, motivation was non-existent,” Dr Farrugia said.

He was addressing a press conference at a dusty warehouse in San Ġwann which will soon stock all the pharmaceuticals procured by the Government. The warehouses at Marsa and Madliena will be vacated by December.

The draft plan also proposes that all medicines supplied by the POYC scheme will be electronically tagged. This will keep the inventory system updated in real time, indicating which medicines require replenishment while assuring traceability and accountability.

Between 2006 and 2010, over 4.2 million boxes of medicines stocked at the Central Procurement Supplies Unit were thrown away because they had expired, Dr Farrugia added.

“You expect natural wastage. But having a haemorrhage which is bleeding the system is not what we want here.”

The minister also stressed that waiting some 12-18 weeks to obtain medicine was “unacceptable”.

The situation between entities was a decadent one

He explained that the problem of out-of-stock medicine at the POYCs resulted from a number of obstacles during procurement, ranging from the agents failing to deliver the stock on time, to pharmacists who had not ordered it in time as well as the unavailability of the medicine on the international market.

The White Paper is therefore proposing a number of different models of procurement. One of the options includes the reorganisation of the POYC unit as a business agency which, apart from distributing medicine to pharmacies, will also be responsible for buying medicine.

Another option also includes the POYC unit distributing medicine directly to the patient. The third option proposes outsourcing the entire system by sub-contracting a private entity for at least four years responsible for procurement, warehousing and distribution.

Dr Farrugia said the “one size fits all” policy had to be eliminated. All medicine was important, he continued, but one needed to distinguish between those that were lifesaving and those which were not.

He added that the Government was also exploring non-EU markets from where to purchase medicine, including India, China and the US.

The health reform will include the launch of a national guidelines document to reduce the risk of drug reactions associated with “polypharmacy” or the use of multiple medications by a patient which, when mixed together, could have detrimental side-effects.

The document also tackles the environmentally-friendly disposal of medicine.

The cost of POYC

There are 213 community pharmacies participating in the scheme across Malta and Gozo, while the total number of patients registered with the scheme amount to 113,781. In 2012, the total cost of operations of the POYC unit amounted to €4.2 million.

From January to July this year, the costs totalled €4 million. Out of this amount, €2.8 million were payments made to the pharmacies in the scheme, in return for services rendered to patients as well as ADSL internet connectivity, stationery and materials.