The Era of Digitalisation is Here

Abstract

There’s an unspoken truth about healthcare digitalisation. In the past, the word “digitalisation” did not exist on the healthcare spectrum. The perception of technology being a threat to healthcare was obvious in everyone’s minds. It was a topic which no healthcare practitioners dared to discover, speak or even touch on. This includes the pharmacy setting in my home country of Malaysia.

In community pharmacies in Malaysia, two critical issues always arise when it comes to dispensing medication. One, the guidelines of dispensing are generally overlooked, to the point where there are many instances of medications being obtained without a prescription by a registered medical practitioner which results in medication abuse. Two, pharmacists are struggling to decipher illegible hand-written paper-based prescriptions, which results in hours of time dissipated quickly. By the same token, dispensing errors can transpire, and even boil down to our worst fears of all, death. One tiny mistake can ruin one’s life.