Take advantage of digital revolution to better health care — Pharmacy industry urged
Six senior pharmacists have urged players in the pharmaceutical industry to take advantage of the digital ecosystem to enhance healthcare in the country.
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They also tasked the industry to collaborate and find more affordable ways of funding digital innovations since the use of technology had now become a necessity.
The six senior pharmacists made the call in a panel discussion at the third West Africa Pharma and Healthcare Conference in Accra last Thursday.
Discussion
The discussants addressed the topic, “Positioning pharmaceutical companies to take advantage of the digital revolution in pharmacy and AI in healthcare delivery”.
They included the Managing Director of Drugnet, Dr (Pharm) Samuel Otuo-Serebour; the Director of Compliance and Enforcement at the Health Facilities Regulatory Agency (HeFRA), Dr (Med) Agyeman Badu, and the Registrar of the Pharmacy Council of Ghana, Dr (Pharm) Daniel Amaning.
Others were the General Secretary of the Private Health Facilities Association of Ghana (PHFAoG), Frank Torblu; the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana National Chamber of Pharmacy, Audrey Serwaa Bonsu, and a representative from EMEA & Agilent Technologies of France and MES Equipment Ltd, Laura Montis.
Online
Dr Amaning stated that his outfit had now moved from paper based registration to doing everything online.
"Unlike before that clients had to pick forms, fill them and submit at our offices, now with just a click on our platform, you can download the form, fill it and submit it instantly. We have gone as far as giving them the liberty to choose dates for inspection, among others.
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" This has made things easier and there is a lot up our sleeves, all in the bid to make the health sector better and easily accessible,” he said.
Impact
In his submission, Dr Badu also noted that technology had impacted the services they rendered .
"Most services now are online, renewal of licences, monitoring, inspection, every finding is documented online so it makes tracking things much easier but we can do more and we will do it," he noted.
For the part of the Chamber of Pharmacy, Ms Bonsu said with the use of technology, her firm collected data and disseminated digitally which saved a lot of time.
Simplicity
Subsequently, Ms Montis stated that pharmaceutical companies were now after simplicity due to technology, and this had impacted the services they rendered.
" They want things that can make work or production easier, things that with just a click, everything is done, as a result we as an entity are always researching, looking for innovative ways to make these things happen using technology," she said.