Prescription and dispensing guidelines in Lebanon: initiative of the Order of Pharmacists of Lebanon

BACKGROUND: In Lebanon, difficulties in accessing medications are due to two main barriers, mainly: high cost and the lack of medication safety, related to poor-quality (irrational) prescription and use. The objective of this work is to suggest guidelines to implement a unified medical prescription in Lebanon. These guidelines are expected to promote medication safety and decrease pharmaceutical expenditures in the Lebanese context. METHODS: The Order of Pharmacists of Lebanon (OPL) developed a comprehensive set of guidelines for physicians and pharmacists, including a detailed workflow process to improve the use of the unified medical prescription. The guidelines were presented to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health (MOPH). RESULTS: The project covered prescription guidelines to physicians (handwritten and electronic-prescriptions), and medication dispensing and generic substitution guidelines to pharmacists. Prescription guidelines included all required information about both the prescribing physician and the patient with the maximum of details, comprehensibility, and caution regarding specific populations/co-morbidities/co-prescriptions. Dispensing guidelines included details for safe and appropriate treatment dispensing, pearls for medications’ counseling and generic substitution, as well as specific consideration for at-risk populations or those with concomitant medications and co-morbidities. Finally, a suggested workflow clarified the process for improving the unified medical prescription. CONCLUSIONS: The implementation of the guidelines should now be formally evaluated, to assess if they achieve the aims to reduce prescribing and dispensing errors, to improve the quality of medicines' prescription and use, the patient care, and the interaction between all stakeholders