Inefficient and irrational use of
medicines is a widespread problem at all levels of health care throughout
India. Lack of discretely documented policies and procedures in respect of
medicines management in a hospital is unnecessarily straining the already
meager resources resulting into poor inflow of benefits to the patients. Per
capita wastage from inefficiencies and irrational use tends to be greatest in hospitals.
Many of these sources of wastage could be reduced if some basic principles of
drug management and use are followed and a proper drug management policy is developed
for each hospital. The effectiveness of the medicines management system in a
hospital depends on adherence to policies (broad, general statements of
philosophy) and procedures (detailed guidelines for implementing policy). For this to happen evidence on current medicine management practices needs to be generated first followed by development of a robust policy framework that can then be translated into practice for efficient utilization of resources.
An effective medicines management
system ensures the availability of the right drugs in the right quantities, at
reasonable prices, and at recognizable standards of quality. Problems can often
be encountered if medicines management in a hospital is carried out without
such a systematic process, for instance the needed medicines may be out of
stock, overstocks and wastage of resources besides purchase of low quality products.
Most of the tertiary care hospitals of J&K state do not have any well
documented medicines management policy and any policy and procedures manual to
guide the usage and management of its medicines supply within the hospital quite
often resulting in unorganized, unscientific and non-systematic selection,
quantification, procurement, quality assurance, storage, distribution and use
of medicines besides wastage of limited resources for medicines. Therefore
there is need to design a comprehensive medicines management policy for tertiary
care hospitals that would lay out a concrete policy framework for its drug
selection, quantification, procurement, storage, distribution, dispensing and
use. This would help these hospitals make the best use of their available
resources for making quality medicines accessible and affordable to their
patients. This paper aims at laying the foundation for design and development
of a comprehensive medicines management policy framework for tertiary care
hospitals of the region.
