The National Administration of Medications, Food and Medical Technology (ANMAT) and the Integral Medical Care Program (PAMI) have launched the new online National Medications Vademecum.
This tool, part of the overall National Medication Traceability project, allows users and professionals to access online information about all the medications sold in the Republic of Argentina.
“The VDM was created in order to be able to provide information to the citizen and replace those designed exclusively for health professionals,” said Roberto Sierras, Director of Information Management at ANMAT.
To centralize updates on the different medications, this first official Vademecum will display their technical specifications: their active ingredients, prescription requirements, forms of administration and available formats, among other details, which can also be downloaded.
In turn, thanks to a provision by the Department of Commerce, the application includes the suggested price for sale of the products. “Until now, a public tool didn’t exist that provided the prices,” Sierras explained.
The site also offers information about the availability of the drug in the market and, if it is out of stock, specifies whether this is a temporary shortage or whether it has been discontinued.
Via this platform, patients, doctors and pharmacists will be able to check on any restrictions on use and/or sale of the prescribed medication and whether it is included in the National Medication Traceability System. In fact, the institutions state that one of the main objectives of the initiative is to promote an effective alternative to fulfill the role of monitoring, registration and vigilance.
“The new Vademecum is a watershed moment as it is the first application shared by different governmental bodies aimed at the citizen,” says Sierras.
Finally, the director of Information Management at ANMAT emphasizes that the project is still being implemented and there is plenty left to do.
ANMAT is seeking to include more information about the medications on its new online platform, such as the gluten-free logo and warnings about side-effects.
The New Vademecum in Numbers
At the moment, the VNM has a total of 49,181 medications entered into it of which 17,856 are sold in the country. This means that 23,376 products not authorized for sale in Argentina are in circulation nonetheless. This new tool is thus fundamental for preventing the consumption of illegal drugs.
The Vademecum also has a total of 216 laboratories that have entered their production into the system. At PAMI, it is estimated that over forty thousand consults are made about medications every day online and there are eighty thousand daily transactions involving them.
Even so, the same website warns that certain information could still be undergoing a process of evaluation. This is why ANMAT provides an email address and a telephone number (0800-333-1234) in the event that the full results of a search are not shown and further information is necessary.
PAMI as a provider of technology
The new National Medications Vademecum project is part of a recent program by PAMI that is seeking to change the paradigm for the inclusion of technology in the health system.
According to its official web page, the ITPAMI system (Technological Innovation at PAMI) is a transversal strategy at the institute whose premise is to generate health-related technology projects and implement eHealth.
This is why PAMI has collaborated on the creation of the VNM. Its role was to provide the technology the platform required to visualize the information and to keep it constantly updated.
