Integrated medicine management system for malaysian healthcare sector

Abstract

Medicine management is an approach supported by evidence to prescribe and manage the patient’s medicines to protect the safety, tolerability, and potency of the medication. It helps practitioners to achieve the optimum use of medicines for a patient, optimizes the treatment benefits and accomplishes the best results for each patient. The three components of the Medicine Management System (MMS), which are Electronic Health Record (EHR), e-prescription, and Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) are vastly used. Despite the values of MMS, only 15.2% of public hospitals in Malaysia utilize the system using different features. This paper reviewed the components of the current MMS, the utilization and challenges of MMS implementation in the Malaysian context, and proposed a new integrated MMS. The proposed MMS is grounded on three theories, namely System Theory, Utilization Theory, and Evidence-Based Theory. The main aspects of the integrated MMS are e-prescription, appropriateness of dosage regimen, covering best current evidence, show alerts of any medicine-related issues, and centralization of patient data that will be designed for all healthcare centers. If any issues arise in the prescribed medicine, an alert will be supported by the current foremost evidence that shows on the prescriber’s system. However, if no issue is detected, the prescription will be saved in the patient’s record and will show on the pharmacy system with direction and cautions related to the medicines. The proposed MMS is postulated to increase the productivity of the healthcare system by reducing medicine-related issues, improve communication among healthcare professionals, enhance patient health, and enhance practitioner operations