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The Government of Andhra Pradesh has taken measures to track and regulate supply and distribution of medicines in primary health centres (PHCs) in the state. Accordingly, the commissioner of health and family welfare has directed the district medical officers to observe every Tuesday as ‘Drug Consumption Day’ and wanted them to update the daily drug consumption details on the e-aushadhi portal.
Since most of the drugs procured by the government are distributed to the people of the state through the PHCs, the medical officer-in-charge of the PHC or the pharmacy officer must keep the data of the medicines received from government sources, distributed and the remaining stock and update them on the e-aushadhi portal on every Tuesday.
A circular issued by the commissioner of health and family welfare to the district medical officers states that the officers and pharmacists should keep the detailed documents of medicines for presenting to the inspection team who will visit the PHCs every Tuesday. Under the leadership of the senior pharmacy supervisors, a team of officials will visit every PHC once in a week and verify the stock list and the data entered on the portal. If any difficulty is faced with updating the information on a daily basis, the office of the DMO can update them on week-end. Government wants to ensure the quality standards of the medicines used by the patients from the PHCs and take stock of the medicines distributed through the centres.
The government hopes that this information on the website will help for a state survey on medicine use in Andhra Pradesh, which will further help the national survey on medicine use in India. According to sources from the health department, updating information on medicine consumption on e-aushadhi portal is for assessing the rational use of medicines in PHCs. The World Health Organisation is also taking a survey of consumption of medicines globally.
It is estimated that some of the PHCs do not keep the proper data of stock and distribution of medicines, so the information entered on the website will help the higher authorities to verify the details without sending the team of inspectors to the PHCs every time. Further, the government wants to know how many prescriptions are coming to the centre every day and what kinds of medicines are supplied to the patients. Since the government of India is emphasizing on generic prescriptions, the assessment of distribution and stock list will enable the health department to know how many of the doctors are following the advice of the government on generic prescription, a pharmacist working in Vijayawada told Pharmabiz in anonymity.
The circular says that if any variation is noticed in the remaining physical stock and in the stock on the portal the pharmacist in the PHC will be responsible for the loss and he will be punished. According to officials, updating drug information on e-portal will help the government take steps to curb the increasing menace of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) also.
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