PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS OF THE ELECTRONIC PRESCRIBTION SYSTEM IN RUSSIA. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW
Authors:   Federal Research Institute for Health Organization and Informatics of Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia, Rauzina S.E. , Shelgunov V.A. ,   Federal Research Institute for Health Organization and Informatics of Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia, Zarubina T.V. ,   Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University, Moscow, Russia
Published: December 2020

Development and implementation of the electronic prescription system is one of the priority areas of eHealth which fulfils a number of functions from prescribing medicines to comprehensive analysis of information and support for medical and management decisions. The current Russian legal framework legitimizes a doctor's prescription in the form of an electronic document. However, there is no definition of the following concepts in the legal acts: “Electronic prescription” and “Electronic prescription system”. The subject of the study is information space in the field of electronic prescription. The purpose is to study the Russian and foreign experience in its implementation, problems and prospects for its introduction at the national and cross-border level on the basis of descriptive and analytical methods. Analysis of the situation in the developed countries shows that currently most of the countries have implemented the electronic prescription system which involves physicians, pharmacists, regulatory organizations, insurance companies, and patients. This system ensures rapid interaction between all parties, lower medical errors, monitoring of medicines’ use, information analysis, and enables the patient to see the prescribed and provided medicines. Large-scale European eHealth projects of the last decade have initiated the exchange of digital prescriptions at the cross-border level, when a patient can get medicines from a pharmacy in the country of temporal residence with a prescription issued in the country of permanent resistance. Information support for the processes of prescribing and dispensing medicines in different regions of the Russian Federation is uneven, from its almost complete absence to full-fledged information systems close to the best analogues in the developed countries by functionality. Specific features of implementing the electronic prescription system in Russia are related to the obligatory registration of information related to supply of medicines to benefit recipients, involvement into circulation of medicines of systems and subsystems of various organizations: registration, keeping the state register of medicines, monitoring of medicine movement, monitoring of procurement, prescription and write off in health care facilities, dispensing within the pharmacy network, circulation of medicines and medical devices of the Eurasian Economic Union countries. It is impossible to develop a full-fledged system of electronic prescription in the Russian Federation without consolidated efforts of all parties, legislative consolidation of basic concepts, a unified information space, and standard data management approaches. Keywords: eHealth; electronic prescription (e-prescription); electronic prescription system; system of electronic drug prescription; medical information system; information system of drug provision to benefit recipients; information support for prescription.