The results of the survey conducted by the State Agency of Medicines (SAM) show that for medicines utilised in hospitals and other healthcare institutions electronic package leaflets are mostly used. Survey results are available here.
SAM conducted a survey of 28 pharmacists at closed-type pharmacies* regarding use of electronic PILs instead of printed (paper) PILs for medicinal product packagings used in hospitals.
The objective of the survey was to evaluate a SAM pilot project which evaluates the use of electronic PILs instead of printed PILs for medicinal product packagings used in hospitals.
Survey results show that electronic PILs are easily accessible to pharmacists, doctors and other healthcare specialists at healthcare institutions. Hospitals most frequently use the Medicinal Product Register available at SAM with the included electronic PILs and summary of product characteristics. Pharmacist indicate that electronic PILs are easy to use, always available and the necessary information can be quickly found. Use of electronic PILs also allows to save paper resources.
According to survey results, 14% of pharmacists use medicinal product PILs once a day, 32% use them once a week, 18% – once a month and 18% - once every six or more months.
At the beginning of this year, SAM in collaboration with Lithuanian and Estonian medicines agencies began to implement a pilot project regarding use of electronic PILs in healthcare institutions. The objective of this project was to evaluate whether the use of electronic PILs ensures safe use of medicines and whether their use could improve availability of medicines utilised in healthcare institutions.
Medicines included in the pilot project are distributed in all of the Baltic States without a paper instruction. The pilot project will last two years.
Project includes only medicines which are utilised in healthcare institutions and can be administered only by healthcare specialists.
During the project, a paper PIL is not included in the packaging of medicines utilised in healthcare institutions, but information about their use is only available electronically in the Medicinal Product Register on SAM website www.zva.gov.lv.
More information about the pilot project, including frequently asked questions and answers and list of medicines distributed in Latvia with an electronic PIL, is available here.
* There is total of 29 closed-type pharmacies in Latvia (data on 08.06.2022). The survey was conducted from 27th April until 29th of June 2022.
