Alkathiri Saba, Alothman Razan, Ata Sondus, Alruthia Yazed
Pharmacoeconomics Research Unit, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.
Pharmacy Services Department, King Saud University Medical City, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.
Healthcare (Basel). 2025 Apr 20;13(8):946. doi: 10.3390/healthcare13080946.
Saudi Arabia is undertaking a comprehensive reform of its healthcare system to improve the efficiency and accessibility of public healthcare services. A key aspect of this initiative is outsourcing outpatient pharmacy services within the public health sector to retail pharmacies through an electronic prescribing platform known as Wasfaty. The National Unified Procurement Company (NUPCO) manages this platform to ensure spending efficiency and patient accessibility to essential medications. However, there has been a lack of research evaluating the adherence of the Wasfaty e-prescribing platform to established best practices for Computerized Provider Order Entry (CPOE), which are commonly used to assess the performance of various ambulatory e-prescribing systems globally. This study aimed to assess the level of adherence of Wasfaty to best practices for CPOE. This descriptive cross-sectional single-center study reviewed filled prescriptions through Wasfaty from May 2022 to December 2023. A list of 60 functional features, including but not limited to patient identification and data access, medication selection, alerts, patient education, data transmission and storage, monitoring and renewals, transparency and accountability, and feedback, was utilized to evaluate adherence. The adherence level was categorized into four groups: fully implemented, partially implemented, not implemented, and not applicable. Two pharmacy interns, a clinical pharmacist, and a researcher, reviewed the prescriptions to determine the platform's adherence to these 60 CPOE features. From May 2022 to December 2023, a total of 1965 prescriptions were filled in retail pharmacies for out-of-stock medications for 1367 patients. These prescriptions included medications for various areas, with the following distribution: gastroenterology (44.10%), cardiology (18.14%), anti-infectives (2.42%), urology (8.85%), dermatology (3.6%), hematology (0.29%), muscle relaxants (0.8%), neurology (19.17%), pulmonology (1.46%), and other categories (1.23%). Of the 60 functional characteristics a CPOE platform should include, only 19 (31.66%) were fully implemented, while 10 (16.66%) were partially implemented. The Wasfaty platform is deficient in several key functional features necessary for e-prescribing, which are essential for ensuring patient safety and enhancing the satisfaction of both prescribers and patients. This study underscores the importance of improving the Wasfaty platform to reduce the risk of adverse drug events.
沙特阿拉伯正在对其医疗体系进行全面改革，以提高公共医疗服务的效率和可及性。该举措的一个关键方面是通过一个名为Wasfaty的电子处方平台，将公共卫生部门的门诊药房服务外包给零售药店。国家统一采购公司（NUPCO）管理这个平台，以确保支出效率和患者获取基本药物的可及性。然而，一直缺乏研究来评估Wasfaty电子处方平台是否符合既定的计算机化医嘱录入（CPOE）最佳实践，而CPOE常用于全球评估各种门诊电子处方系统的性能。本研究旨在评估Wasfaty对CPOE最佳实践的符合程度。这项描述性横断面单中心研究回顾了2022年5月至2023年12月期间通过Wasfaty开出的已填写处方。利用一份包含60项功能特性的清单来评估符合情况，这些特性包括但不限于患者识别和数据访问、药物选择、警报、患者教育、数据传输和存储、监测与续方、透明度与问责制以及反馈等。符合程度分为四组：完全实施、部分实施、未实施和不适用。两名药房实习生、一名临床药剂师和一名研究人员对处方进行了审查，以确定该平台对这60项CPOE特性的符合情况。2022年5月至2023年12月期间，零售药店共为1367名患者开出了1965份缺货药物的处方。这些处方涵盖了各个领域的药物，分布如下：胃肠病学（44.10%）、心脏病学（18.14%）、抗感染药（2.42%）、泌尿学（8.85%）、皮肤病学（3.6%）、血液学（0.29%）、肌肉松弛剂（0.8%）、神经学（19.17%）、肺病学（1.46%）以及其他类别（1.23%）。在CPOE平台应具备的60项功能特性中，只有19项（31.66%）得到了完全实施，而10项（16.66%）得到了部分实施。Wasfaty平台在电子处方所需的几个关键功能特性方面存在不足，这些特性对于确保患者安全以及提高开方者和患者的满意度至关重要。本研究强调了改进Wasfaty平台以降低药物不良事件风险的重要性。
