A “dematerialization” underway. An experiment will be launched in 2024 that will first consist of “adding a QR code” to certain boxes sold in pharmacies, with a view to a possible elimination of paper in the future, the ministries concerned announced on Friday.
This “dématérialisation” des notices are part of a larger stratégie de “planification écologique” du système de santé pilotée notamment par les ministers Agnès Firmin Le Bodo (Organisation territoriale et professions de santé), Roland Lescure (Industrie) et Stanislas Guérini ( Public function).
Paper preserved in the city’s pharmacies
The experiment, which will last one year, will begin in the “first quarter of 2024”, will affect “a panel” of selected medications and will be carried out simultaneously, but in a differentiated manner, in the hospital and in the city’s pharmacies, they indicated to the AFP. interested ministries.
In the hospital, the test will consist of removing the paper notices “immediately,” “since they are not used at all in indoor pharmacies,” they detailed.
In the city’s pharmacies, however, in this phase the paper instructions will be kept, but a QR code will be added to the box. It will refer to “reinforced information” online with “different media, which could be videos, more readable and interactive sheets.”
The experiment will be directed by the National Agency for Drug Safety (ANSM) and the General Directorate of Health.
Among the drugs in question are “general public” molecules, such as paracetamol or ibuprofen, quite widespread “prescription drugs”, such as antibiotics, but also drugs against chronic diseases, in particular cancer.
“Appropriation of the QR code by patients”
The Government’s objective is to “evaluate the appropriation of the QR code by patients” and, depending on the results, this “could evolve towards the elimination of the paper leaflet.”
For the future, there are several “solutions” on the table, including a possible “provision of paper instructions for pharmacists” for people “who have difficulty accessing digital information.”
Ministers also announce “current work in 2024” on a new “methodology for calculating the carbon footprint of healthcare products, in particular medicines”.
This methodology should make it possible to “reinforce the consideration of the environmental footprint in public procurement” and “potentially in the long term in the economic regulation mechanisms” of health products.
Medical products represent 54% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the healthcare sector, which in turn emits 8% of national GHGs.
Source: BFM TV
