The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, will today, Wednesday, December 22, launch the e-pharmacy digital platform in Accra.
The digitization of pharmacies, which will have the nation’s pharmacies converged on one digital platform, is aimed at addressing difficulties of roaming around looking for medicines in pharmacies and, promoting competitive pricing and reducing the rate of drug abuse and the sale of fake drugs to unsuspecting members of the public.
Through a mobile phone, as well as mobile money interoperability and universal QR Code services, the Ghanaian public will be able to enter their prescriptions into the digital platform, select of pharmacy of their choice, pay for their medicines, and have them delivered to their homes comfortably, without having to move around from one pharmacy to the other.
The e-pharmacy is a culmination of a challenge the Vice President threw at the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana.
It will also check fake or counterfeit medicines because the platform will be linked to the FDA, which will monitor the batch numbers of all products in real-time.
In November 2021, Dr. Bawumia said “Basically, the digital e-Pharmacy platform will offer the opportunity to everyone through a mobile phone to upload your prescriptions and find out which pharmacies near you have the medicines. Secondly, you can compare the prices for the same drug offered by different prices so that you can buy from the lowest priced pharmacies”, Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu said at a public lecture at the Ashesi University in Berekuso.
“Patients or people generally face difficulties when trying to find medicines in pharmacies. They have no way of knowing which pharmacies have the medicines. They could go to five pharmacies before getting lucky. Sometimes patients are directed to go to specific pharmacies to buy the medicine, denying them any advantage there might be of choosing from a lower-priced shop.”
Source: Mybrytnewsroom.com
