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In a bid to streamline registered pharmacists' micro level data collection at pan-India level, the Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) has launched a national digital platform for registration and tracking of pharmacists titled Pharmacist Registration and Tracking System (PRTS).
PRTS will help PCI collect data on gender wise, age-group wise and education level wise number of pharmacists in various states. It will also provide state wise information on employment status of pharmacists where they are working as community pharmacists, hospital pharmacists or employed with pharmaceutical industry, pharmacy colleges, etc, said registrar-cum-secretary of PCI Archna Mudgal.
Under PRTS, every registered pharmacist is required to upload details about his qualification, registration, profession, etc on the online portal.
PCI in a circular urged all the registered pharmacists in the country to fill their pharmacist registration details under PRTS as per the following steps: Step-1: Type http://www.pci.nic.in/UM.html, Step-2: Click on User Management, Step-3: Register yourself and click ‘Submit’, Step-4: After registration, fill the details in the proforma titled “Pharmacist Profile” and click ‘Submit’.
The pilot project has been launch with effect from November 13, 2018 for pharmacists registered with Delhi State Pharmacy Council. The same will be rolled out for the entire country with effect from December 1, 2018, said the circular.
As of now, state pharmacy councils share pharmacists' data with PCI but there is no uniformity in state pharmacy councils' data sharing format. PRTS will bring uniformity in nation wide data collection and will synchronize registries of all state pharmacy councils.
The PRTS registry will be the national level registry of registered pharmacists. The pharmacists who got themselves registered with respective state pharmacy councils are only allowed to register with PRTS, said Mudgal.
A qualified pharmacist can upload requisite details on the central web portal after uploading all his details with the online portal of the respective state pharmacy council. The PRTS will allow registration only after a verification of details with the state council. If any discrepancy is found in the facts and figures given on the state and central council portals, application of such pharmacists will not be successfully processed by PRTS. All state councils have to create their own online registries in order to link with the central registry.
It will also help track status of pharmacists working abroad whether they have renewed their rregistration or not.
Based on the data captured by PRTS, a policy will be drafted to address challenges in pharmacy profession, she added.
The PRTS will help address certain malpractices in pharmacy profession as it will ensure registration of only qualified pharmacists. It will also prevent pharmacists from renting out registration certificate to more than one pharmacy. For instance, if a pharmacist is already working in some other pharmacy, it can be easily detected by the enforcement authorities and action can be taken against him/her, said sources in PCI.
It will have a wider impact on service sector. A pharmacist needs to upload details on PRTS portal whenever he gets employed by a pharmacy/pharma industry/pharmacy college and resigns from that job and gets another employment opportunity, they added.
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