Bangladesh advances on digital health in measuring access to medicines using the smartphone application ‘MedMon’ designed by WHO.
Management Information System department (MIS) under Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) in collaboration with the Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA) and supported by WHO are assessing availability and affordability of a basket of essential medicines in health facilities.
The assessment will be carried out using the smartphone application ‘MedMon’ designed by WHO, a tool for rapid collection and data analysis on the price and availability of medicines in health facilities, pharmacies and drug stores.
Eight hospital pharmacists and eight superintendents of drugs from all divisions have been trained in November on using MedMon and the first round of data collection is scheduled for December in a sample of health facilities across the country.
MedMon App allows users to routinely monitor medicines’ prices and availability in a sustainable, cost-effective, and timely manner, regardless of the users’ access to internet or cellular data. The tool is designed to avoid duplication of efforts and potential manual entry errors which happen when data are collected on paper and then transferred to an electronic format.
The application will provide to Bangladesh a system for rapid data collection and analysis on access to medicines and will support generating evidence for policy making on medicines-related issues, including affordability. This is particularly important as near 70% of total out-of-pocket spending on healthcare is on medicines, making affordability an important factor in people’s access to medicines.
Moreover, the app will better enable the country to monitor the Sustainable Development Goals indicator 3.b.3. proportion of health facilities that have a core set of relevant essential medicines available and affordable on a sustainable basis, key step in achieving universal health coverage.
WHO remains committed in supporting Government of Bangladesh in building and deploying digital health solutions that would produce better health data that can generate solid evidence for improved health policies.