RE: Re:Medicine prices in India - who cares? Awareness

[Guest guest]

Dear all,

Awareness about different generic version of same molecule, price variations of different brands is very important. One really can not predict the quality of medicines by different pharmaceutical firms. Who knows that the streptokinase manufactured by a reputed company had very little or no active compound in it? The article did not mention the company whose product was not found up to the mark.

Consumer awareness about medicine pricing is very important and it has been shown if consumers are well aware and empowered, it helps in bringing down the price by the pharmaceuticals.

In India, who is educating or giving information to the consumers? It is the responsibility of the government and the so called Consumer Activists/NGOs. I would like to know from the group do they know any organisation who is working on this subject - medicine prices? Is there any programme by the local government or central government that gives information to the patient about how the prices for medicines are fixed and the prices for different trade names of the same molecule? if patients starting demanding the prescription of lowest priced version, automatically quality will come into picture and there will be real competition in the market for a competitive price.

Hope to hear from many regarding awareness about the medicine prices!

Best,

Anita Kotwani

netrum From: rakesh7biswas@...Date: Sun, 16 Dec 2007 12:10:23 +0800Subject: Re: Medical learning and medical pricing: who cares?

Let us discuss the role and care by the NGOs, consumer organizations. Are they really aware of these issues and try to solve these issues and do they educate patients about prices of medicines?

Thanks.

Anita Kotwani

Thanks Dr Anita,

I was wondering why I was digressing into CMEs while the topic at hand was medical pricing but as you have mentioned above it appears any issue in medicine will eventually involve medical learning.

As you state awareness is a first step to learning and as medical educators we need to explore how one becomes aware. I was unaware of the variable quality of streptokinase that Dr Vijay helped to furnish evidence of and I learnt about it (albeit quite late). I wonder if it would have been possible for me to learn earlier if we had a system of knowledge sharing in a collaborative, caregiving and functioning network? For example, if I had a patient prior to this whose ECG didn't show the characteristic ST segment elevation reduction (that I may have hoped for after streptokinase) could I have shared these thoughts with a network of similarly functioning individuals reporting their own experiences and got enlightened on this sooner. If the network was stronger there could have been a pharmacological quality testing expert in it who may have offered to test my patient's medicine sample for potency and I would have been able to determine that some medicines that I was prescribing in good faith were actually water. I guess some would say this is the job of pharmacovigilance but then doesn't vigilance always begin with the end user?

Similarly educating users about medicine prices (against a backdrop of quality uncertainty) would be a necessary (though challenging) exercise that again could be accomplished in a job driven manner through a knowledge network . Like I have this patient who is not able to afford the branded streptokinase that I offer but could benefit with a cheaper streptokinase (provided we are certain of the quality) all I would need to do is enter my requirement into the care giving collaborative electronic network. The key word tags that I would need to use for this entry (if you have posted videos to Youtube you would know what I mean) would automatically match with information that would show up immediately at the click of my mouse. This information could be about cheaper brands of streptokinase tested for quality that I could order from my location. However this on the job learning solution has the danger of being misused by unscrupulous vendors as well and needs to be further worked on (for example the drug manufacturer inserting their own information would need to also attach links to their authenticity).

NGOs, consumer organizations, patients and health professionals are all interrelated and all we need is to interconnect their day to day experiences from their practice and bring it onto a common web based platform which is transparent as well as responsible to a legal body.

rakesh

Dear NetRUMians,

We have discussed the role and care for medicine prices for common man by regulatory authorities, doctors and pharmacists.

Let us discuss the role and care by the NGOs, consumer organizations. Do they really aware of these issues and try to solve these issues or do they educate patients about prices of medicines?

Thanks.

Anita Kotwani

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