Smart community centers nationwide to receive new equipment

Counterfeiting and drug trafficking will be left behind with the implementation of the digital medical prescription made official by the Ministry of Health. This is due to the fact that the system provides greater control and traceability of drugs, both at the time they are prescribed and when they are withdrawn by patients. Read more: “Issuance and dispensing of medicines should be digital” The automation of the process is for medical, dental and pharmacy professionals who dispense psychotropic and narcotic drugs. Those who continue to stick to the physical prescription will generate delays in their patients’ doses, as they will not be dispensed the drugs. “This is the prescription that legally must be used and replaces the green and blue prescription that were the ones for psychotropics and narcotics. The repercussion for those who do not use it is that their prescriptions will not be valid and therefore their patients will not be able to pick up medicines at pharmacies,” warned Fernando Llorca, Minister of Health. To register, the interested party must have a digital signature certificate and enter recetadigital.go.cr. The system will ask for basic information such as professional code, geographic location and other data. This guarantees the patient that the person who is treating him/her is authorized in his/her respective school. In addition, the patient is guaranteed that the drug being prescribed is in force in the country. Read more: “Technological backwardness favors drug counterfeiting” Other benefits of the system are that it will eliminate duplicate prescriptions or avoid transfers and requests for consultations at Ebais just to request a prescription, since the patient will have a code in their WhatsApp, email or printed form that will allow them to fill their prescriptions. The Clínica Bíblica Hospital began training and tests for the use of this platform three months ago. Currently, more than 100 physicians and some 25 pharmaceutical regents are using the system. The platform is managed by Radiográfica Costarricense (Racsa), which saw an opportunity to expand its portfolio by incorporating technological innovation into health services. With this officialization, the GS Uno Association sees an opportunity for this process to be linked with other controls to detect products in unauthorized networks. Tracking movements that cause non-compliance and can act with better results. HOW IT WORKS With the elimination of paper, the user of health services is guaranteed a more expeditious process. The Ministry of Health expects to dispense more than 1 million prescriptions per year through the new platform. Steps to obtain the medication: 1. Go to your doctor, pharmacist or dentist. They are in charge of filling the digital prescription and generating a code. 2. The code is sent to you electronically or printed. 3. When you arrive at the pharmacy, show the code so that they can dispense the medication.