“Annual Pharma Statistics” as a Health Information System Application in Iranian Pharmaceutical Sector

Information plays a vital role in effective management of any system. With the Health Management Information System (HMIS), specific information may be provided to support the decision makers at various levels of the health system to assist evidence-based decision making. It is almost three decades (from 1984) that Iranian Ministry of Health (MoH) has used HMIS in its pharmaceutical sector as a mean to have an efficient regulation. Pharmaceutical distributor companies have reported their sales data to MoH at monthly intervals. Each company should report its data by 5th of each month. “Iranian MoH Annual Pharma Statistics” or “Amarnameh daruee Iran” will be published as software after combining this data with other related data and statistical analysis. This database is a basis for deciding issues of many policy makers, and management possesses in pharmaceutical sector. After an efficient coordination between MoH and distributors, each company reports its data in a defined format including some detailed information. Table 1 shows a sample chart of characteristics for this HMIS. Each pharmaceutical product in each city/each month has one record. For each product with brand name, the specific code will be used. If there is not any code for branded products, it is very important to get feedback to MoH to solve such problems. Figure 1 is a sample file format of a hypothetical company named XY to show more details. Until 1998 this information was reported as a manual printed database. From 1998 to 2003 it was reported as a book, and since 2003 the electronic database including data since 1998 has been published. Copyright © 2015 by School of Pharmacy Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and Health Services Iranian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research (2015), 14 (1): 1-2