Formosa News
Date: 2019/03/25

The government says its new cloud-based system is working to reduce prescription errors. Every year, millions of taxpayer dollars are wasted when patients are prescribed drugs by doctors who don’t know they’re already taking the same drug or something similar. In 2017, the government launched an electronic system that checks all new medications against ongoing treatments. The National Health Insurance Administration says that in just a year, the system has already reduced errors by nearly 80 percent.

Tai Hsueh-yung
Health insurance official
What we see now is that antihypertensive drugs are No. 1. In second place are hypno-sedative drugs.

Government data show that duplicate medication orders are a serious problem that cost the healthcare system NT$376 million in 2017.

To tackle therapeutic duplication, the NHIA integrated prescription histories with hospital medical records on the cloud. Automatic alerts on the electronic system give doctors a clear picture of what drugs the patient is taking. One year after the system rolled out, duplicate orders fell from 570,000 in 2017 to 120,000 in 2018.    [FULL  STORY]