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Adopt Japan’s paperless system to cut waiting times at pharmacies

I refer to the letter “Many ways for polyclinics to deliver medicine to patients” (July 24) and must ask: How should the patients pay the bill — via the Internet, the Uber guy or the AXS machine?

I refer to the letter “Many ways for polyclinics to deliver medicine to patients” (July 24) and must ask: How should the patients pay the bill — via the Internet, the Uber guy or the AXS machine?

I hope that Singapore will become a cashless society soon. More importantly, let us look at systems in other countries that we can emulate.

In Japan, doctors can send prescriptions electronically to pharmacists. The patient need not carry a hard copy to the pharmacy and wait to be called.

In our polyclinics and hospitals, the pharmacy queues are not short, owing to the accumulation of patients congregating and waiting for their medicine to be packed and issued.

In the Japanese paperless prescription system, by the time the patient leaves the doctor’s examination room and makes his or her way to the pharmacy, the medicine can be ready for collection.

Let us learn from Japan and become a smart nation. The target must be to cut waiting times at the pharmacy.

Long queues may mean a poor management system, causing low productivity.

The Health Ministry should study the Japanese system and determine which is superior before we go on the Uber route, which would increase traffic unnecessarily in our island of 719 square kilometres.

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