Full-scale expansion of the DUR (Drug Utilization Review) service, an intelligent support system for prescription drugs
The number of chronically ill patients has continued to grow in tandem with a rapidly aging population and changes in lifestyles. In particular, as the number of patients with more than two chronic illnesses goes up, patients often have to visit multiple medical institutions. The problem is that doctors and pharmacists, uninformed of the patient's previous medical history, might prescribe medicine the patient has already taken. As a result, the patient can end up taking excessive amounts of medication and be in danger of suffering from side effects overdosing. To address such issues, the Korean government and Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) have scaled up the DUR (Drug Utilization Review) system -- a prescription drug support service aimed at ensuring the safety of prescribed drugs-- since December of this year.
Then, what is DUR (Drug Utilization Review) What kind of impact will it have on our lives
Emergence of the DUR service as a new medical measure and the current situation of IT medical systems
"The DUR service is a preventative safeguard against overlapping medication prescriptions and misuse of medications: real-time information related to the safety of medications pops up on PC monitors to prevent doctors and pharmacists from prescribing and dispensing medication inappropriately. For example, the patient's previous medical records and information on medication that should not be taken together is provided," said Kang Yoon-goo, President of Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA).
"Doctors examine patients and issue prescriptions after they confirm whether problematic drugs were excluded with the help of the DUR system. Then, pharmacists take a second look at the prescription via the DUR system and dispense medications to a T. In other words, the DUR system is a real-time medical system which prevents the issuance of overlapping prescriptions. Therefore, the DUR system preempts the misuse of medication by providing information on whether the same drug was prescribed twice or whether certain drugs that are harmful to the patient were included in the prescription. At the moment, the DUR system can identify the drugs that should not be taken together, those harmful to children and pregnant women as well as over-prescribed drugs. In the future, the DUR system will get more sophisticated to screen out possible dangers at the stage of prescribing medications," added President Kang.
Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) has put in place the DUR system since 2008. Since December of this year, prescriptions issued by different doctors which overlap have been examined by the DUR system. By March of next year, all the medical institutions and pharmacies in the nation will be equipped with the DUR system, and large general hospitals will fully employ the DUR program by December of next year owing to preparations for system setups. In short, the DUR system is a medical service that ensures safer issuing of prescriptions.
Building of an advanced assessment system through IT
On top of that, the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) has been running an intelligent, scientific assessment system that is capable of handling nearly 1.3 billion cases of medical treatment information annually. President Kang said, "To enhance the accuracy and credibility of assessments, we adopted the DW system earlier than any other public institution to lead by example. HIRA is currently contemplating the adoption of "mobile offices", an IT trend brought on by the government-initiated smart work initiative. Also to that end, we are upgrading the current assessment system into a Web-based one.
Leading smart medical culture by capitalizing on SNS and blogs
By taking advantage of the vast amount of information on useful medical services, offered by HIRA, everyone can become a smart medical consumer.
A case in point is HIRA's online magazine "Health Narae" (http://z.hira.or.kr/index.do), designed for smart medical consumers. "At http://z.hira.or.kr/index.do, information on cooking, travel, TV dramas and leisure is provided by each sector's best power bloggers. In particular, the Hospital Search Service of the Webzine is useful: if visitors type in obstetrics and gynecology, well-reviewed news reports related to pregnancy and infant rearing are recommended. It is a so-called intelligent webzine. When pediatrics or obstetrics and gynecology are searched for through the Hospital Search Service, relevant reports show up to allow visitors to be better informed of health-related issues," said President Kang. What's more, health information posted on Health Narae can be re-posted on the visitor's Twitter and Facebook blogs. Also, mobile Health Narae www.mz.hira.or.kr is available.
On the other hand, HIRA has recently launched a health information app service. HIRA's health information app service offers a wide range of information on over 60,000 hospitals and 20,000 pharmacies nationwide. In particular, as HIRA's health information app service exploits the augmented reality (AR) technology, when smartphone users view their surroundings especially nearby hospitals and pharmacies via the smartphone camera, they can be informed of distances, addresses, phone numbers, the number of doctors and patient rooms as well as medical services offered. HIRA's health information app service, a multifunctional hybrid app, also offers HIRA' s assessments of the clinic's rates of prescribing antibiotics, parenteral injections and cesarean sections; acute myocardial infarction; and acute strokes. Thus, before housewives, children and elderly people see a doctor, they can put the information to good use. In addition, the DUR system helps patients check the safety of the drugs prescribed to them on their own. Furthermore, when those who suffer from chronic illnesses need immediate medical attention, they can send messages with information of their location to 911.
About Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service
In July of 2000, HIRA was established as the Korea's only health insurance review and assessment institution, which is responsible for reviewing medical fees as well as evaluating the appropriateness of health care services provided to health insurance beneficiaries. HIRA has been engaged in medical service quality assessments, disclosing the result of assessments, development of medical service assessment criteria, provision of information on medical services to the public to protect the public's right to choose medical services, provision of services to check medical fees and development of government policy on health insurance.
HIRA, armed with the world's largest medical information data base, electronically takes care of 1.3 billion medical bills annually via EDI (Electronic Data Interchange). They have acquired EDI International Patents from Japan, America and others. Additionally, HIRA has a secure medical IT infrastructure where 40% of medical bills are reviewed through HIRA's intelligent program-based online assessments. Besides, HIRA' s AI (Artificial Intelligence) e-assessment which automatically conducts assessments of common diseases, speeds up the work process and cuts back on medical fees. The AI e-assessment substitutes for 150 workers and saves KRW 33.1 billion.
Lastly, President Kang mentioned, "HIRA's next-generation assessment system will go beyond the boundary of HIRA. We aim to share information and better communicate with customers by providing high-quality services in line with the ubiquitous era."
