• Malaysia to Pilot the Separation of Prescribing & Dispensing
• TTSH Pharmacists Helped to Half Patients’ Hospital Stay and Safe Cost
• New Director for the USFDA’s CDER

? Malaysia to Pilot the Separation of Prescribing & Dispensing

Separation of prescribing from dispensing (commonly known as dispensing right) has been a protracted bone of contention for pharmacists and doctors in Malaysia and Singapore for many decades.

Things seemed to have taken a positive turn in Malaysia lately as the Ninth Malaysian Plan including a broad statement under it’s National Drug Policy to suggest defining clear roles of prescribing by doctors and dispensing by the pharmacists. A few rounds of discussion were initiated and much debates and preparations have been made by our pharmacy counterparts in Malaysia. Recently, a pleasant announcement was made by the Director General of Malaysian Ministry of Health – Dr. Ismail Merican, who himself is a medical doctor – declared the intention to roll out a pilot project. The report was published in the New Straits Times of 30-Mar-08.

Full report of the newspaper column can be read here. This is an inspirational step forward and we certainly hope that such pilot will translate into something positive and that it would trigger a knock-on effect for our situation here in Singapore.

? TTSH Pharmacists Helped to Half Patients’ Hospital Stay and Safe Cost

Hospital pharmacists’ role in anticoagulation management has received prominent news coverage. On 07-Mar-08,  the Straits Times prominently highlighted the synergistic collaboration doctors and pharmacists, working together to help reduce patients’ hospital stay by up to 6 days , reduce morbidity, improve patients’ outcome, and more importantly alleviating the financial strain of the patients and their family. In this report, the cost saving cited for TTSH scenario is a substantial >$2,000 in cost saving. With pharmacists now actively taking on such value-added cognitive services, we firmly position ourselves to ensure that  contribute meaningfully and significantly to increase the efficiency of our healthcare delivery process amidst the ever evolving healthcare system

? New Director for the USFDA’s CDER
 
The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) under the US FDA is one of the most important centres for the agency. The CDER is responsible for all the drug evaluation and registration to ensure that safe, efficacious and quality Rx and non-Rx drugs become available to the Americans, the world single largest consumer of pharmaceuticals.

The new appointee is Dr. Janet Woodcock who is a medical doctor by training. Her extensive scientific knowledge and experience in drug safety and regulation come at an opportune time when drug safety and credential issues in drug regulation in the US take a centre stage focus by the public and policy makers collectively.

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