Most importantly, make sure the buyer has a legitimate prescription.
Currently, there is a situation where pharmacy chains are allowing people to choose medicine on their website and if a prescription is prescribed, they call the customer directly to make the transaction and deliver the goods.
In some mobile applications, when customers choose medicine, the application will introduce the customer to a pharmacy and the pharmacy will call to consult, then deliver the medicine via pharmacy counter staff or motorbike taxi...
According to the representative of the Vietnam Medical Informatics Association, pharmacies have many disguised forms of selling medicine online to circumvent the law and erase traces.
The most important issue of online sales is to ensure that the buyer has a legal prescription (a real prescription, an unpurchased prescription, a valid prescription); ensure that the pharmacy is licensed as a retail pharmacy that meets GDP standards as prescribed, not just anyone can be a seller.
In addition, it is necessary to ensure the delivery process is within the allowed range and time (under 5km and under 10 minutes from when the medicine leaves the pharmacy) so that the medicine is not damaged due to storage or temperature.
"The legalization and management of online drug sales needs to be implemented immediately so that state management agencies can manage these activities, avoiding the situation where online drug sales are still being carried out secretly without being known or are extremely difficult to catch and detect," a representative of the Vietnam Medical Informatics Association raised the issue.
To manage this issue, up to now, the Ministry of Health has had and put into operation 2 information technology systems that meet some of these cycles, including: National information system on prescription management and prescription drug sales and Software system for drug retail establishments.
The national prescription management information system stores all transparent electronic prescriptions generated by medical examination and treatment facilities and shares prescriptions (via prescription codes) from patients to drug retailers.
The system receives reports and updates the status of electronic prescriptions: Full sales, partial sales, expired prescriptions from drug stores and continues to share them the next time the patient purchases again.
To date, the system has only connected nearly 170 million orders from more than 20,000 medical examination and treatment facilities and more than 100,000 doctors.
The software system for drug retail establishments has been operating since 2019 according to the provisions of Circular 02/2018/TT-BYT on 100% of retail establishments having computers, network connection and software. Therefore, these establishments can receive electronic prescriptions and sell drugs, and send reports on the status of prescription sales to the national prescription.
"To ensure accurate, safe and effective online drug sales, the Ministry of Health needs to include it in the law and coordinate with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to inspect, monitor and certify the announcement of applications and e-commerce platforms that meet management regulations," this representative emphasized.
Strict regulations are needed on drug trading via e-commerce.
Commenting on the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Pharmacy, delegate Nguyen Lan Hieu (National Assembly delegate of Binh Dinh province) said that the situation of selling drugs on the internet with some products that are not drugs is widespread, causing harm to health and causing public outrage.
Therefore, the delegates agreed to strictly regulate the trading of drugs via e-commerce. The delegates stated that drugs sold online must be drugs licensed for circulation in Vietnam.
"Medicines sold via e-commerce include over-the-counter (OTC) and prescription drugs, but they must be prescribed by a medical facility on an electronic prescription system (medical examination book and electronic medical record). Pharmacies that sell online also need to ensure standards issued and assessed and licensed by the Ministry of Health. Testing should begin at hospital pharmacies that have fully implemented Electronic Medical Records (EMR)," said Mr. Nguyen Lan Hieu.
According to delegate Nguyen Lan Hieu, if the regulations are strict, immediately after the revised Pharmacy Law is passed and the Ministry of Health has a guiding circular, hospitals will certainly be able to implement it, creating favorable conditions for people as well as limiting the current chaotic situation.
