In less than a week, 55,577 Ligurians have given the essential consent to join the new service made available throughout the territory by the Liguria Region and Liguria Digitale, in collaboration with Federfarma and general practitioners, for the complete dematerialization of medical prescriptions of drugs. From the start, last Monday 3 April, to 18 yesterday, Thursday 6 April, the operations carried out in the pharmacy have been 35,559.
After having given the one-off consent in any of the pharmacies in the region, both for red and white prescriptions (those for drugs not covered by the National Health System), it is sufficient to present only the health card: the pharmacist will be able to view all the recipes prescribed in Liguria for that user. The prescriptions that the pharmacist can see are those still valid and prescribed starting from the day on which consent was given. The service is aimed at adults enrolled in the Regional Health Registry.
With the dematerialisation of the prescription for all types of prescriptions, those who go to the pharmacy no longer have to show text messages and paper reminders that were often forgotten or lost, causing inconvenience and wasting time for both users and professionals.
The dematerialized prescription is a channel that adds to those used up to now: the doctor can always print or send the reminder via email, to guarantee the possibility of continuing to collect the drugs that require Nre (for example in the case of particular medical devices ) or for those who do not intend to give consent or want to buy medicines outside Liguria. The simplification concerns all pharmaceutical prescriptions, with the sole exception of some particular cases, such as prescriptions prescribed by hospital specialists, those prescribed by hand and/or printed on regional paper prescriptions (now residual).
Dematerialized prescriptions are growing: in 2021 more than 21 million were issued (21,738,402 to be exact), with an average (excluding public holidays) of over 85,000 per day (85,249). In 2022 they rose to more than 24 million (24,042,485), with a daily average of over 95,000 (95,407). In the first three months of 2023 they exceeded 6 million (6,262,965) with an average of over 102,672 recipes per day.
“Having exceeded 55,000 subscriptions in just four days is a sign of the appreciation of the Ligurians for this initiative, which goes in the direction of simplifying the relationship between citizens and the regional health system – say the president of the Region Giovanni Toti and the councilor to Angelo Gratarola Health -. It is certainly the right path: through digital technology and thanks to the collaboration between the various categories involved, procedures can really become simpler and more efficient for users”.
“More than 571 pharmacies have already displayed prescriptions – explains Enrico Castanini, sole administrator of Liguria Digitale – and provided the new consent registration service to users. In essence, all have joined, with the exception of a couple, one of which is closed for holidays. Of course, behind the dematerialisation of the recipe there is a great deal of work not only in terms of governance, but also at a regulatory level, especially on privacy, and at an IT level. From a technological point of view, it was necessary to align and connect the platforms that manage the sensitive data of citizens at ministerial level, of local health, of general practitioners and pharmacies”.