The President of Healthcare Federation of Nigeria and MD JNC Int’l Ltd Clare Omatseye has emphasized on the need for innovative disruption for a more robust and efficient health care delivery system.
She made the call at the 91st conference of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, PSN tagged “Innovative Disruption in Pharmacy in Emerging Economies: A Roadmap for Nigeria”, in Ibadan.
“Today the number of doctors, pharmacists and nurses to patients is extremely low, we need to think of ways to use technology to close that gap. We need to look at the supply chain, how do we get essential drugs faster to our patients.
“Technology is moving ahead, are we as pharmacists moving with improving technology? Innovative disruption is doing things that enhance the way we do things today. So technology presents opportunities for enhanced efficiency.
“Banking, telecommunications industries and others have since embraced technology to improve operations. When we talk about commerce, we have so many online stores today where you can order items online and get it delivered. The pharmaceutical industry cannot afford to left behind. It needs to be able to deliver quality assured, affordable, accessible essential medicines.”
Omatseye challenged key players in the health sector especially pharmacists to be distruptive in their thoughts by using the leverage of technology to become effective in procurement and supply chain management.
She opined that innovative financing of health care by placing taxes on luxury items should be looked into be the appropriate authorities as access to finance has been a major challenge.
“We need to distrupt the way healthcare is financed. One way we can do this is through ‘Domestic Resource Mobilization’, where we can all decide to pay 1% tax on luxury goods like alcohol, cigarettes and sugary drinks. That could go into a healthcare fund.”
“Another thing we can look into is for every community pharmacists to have an interactive website that is mobile responsive where drugs can be bought online.”
