The Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has launched the National Electronic Pharmacy Platform (NEPP), a technological platform commissioned and authorised by the Pharmacy Council to facilitate and regulate access to medicines and pharmaceutical services remotely whilst protecting the safety and confidentiality of consumers.
The NEPP will ensure transparent medicine dispensing mechanisms and promote high accountability and responsibility for such medicines.
According to the Vice-President, NEPP is a Pharmacy Council-led initiative, that exists to guarantee the highest level of pharmaceutical care in Ghana; the implementation of ePharmacy will make quality pharmaceutical care accessible to all; irrespective of where one lives in the country.
He said the introduction of the platform would help to improve access to quality pharmaceutical care, health promotion, and disease prevention whilst creating sustainable jobs for the teeming youth of Ghana.
However, it is a collaborative platform with several partner agencies owning aspects of the platform through interoperability.
Dignitaries present at the launch of the National Electronic Pharmacy Platform were, Minister of Health; Kwaku Agyemang Manu, the Registrar of the Pharmacy Council; Dr. Audu Rauf and the President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana; Pharm Samuel Kow Donkoh amongst others.
General Advantages of NEPP:
- Allowing the general public to order medicines in a convenient manner using their phones or computers.
- Enabling access to rural areas where there is a limited presence of retail pharmacies
- Enable customers, clients, and patients to access a wide range of medicines as well as the generic equivalents of branded medicines.
- Enables patients and clients to call and speak to pharmacy care providers, and allows for value-added information such as drug interactions, side effects, medicine reminders as well as information on cheaper substitutes.
- Helping patients to adhere or comply with the prescribed dosage regimens of their medicines because of ready and easy access to information.
Benefits for the Pharmaceutical Sector:
- NEPP is the first national-scale platform for regulating virtual-based access to medications in Sub-Saharan Africa in accordance with the increasing shift in how patients are accessing care.
- Today, community pharmacies are under threat from large well-funded global e-commerce entities. These e-commerce entities take business out of the community pharmacies and don’t offer the patient any pharmaceutical care. With NEPP, all community pharmacies irrespective of your size can be competitive at a minimal cost to the pharmacy.
- Promote and improves electronic payments thereby reducing the propensity to burglary and theft in community pharmacies.
- Community pharmacies can contribute to national health data by reporting to DHIMS.
- Promote the role of pharmacists in health care delivery.
- Improves access to medicines and pharmaceutical care nationwide.