Software for the digitalization of all the drug- related procedures at the Service of Pharmacy in Lebanon

“MedLeb” is a software designed by Oummal to digitalize all the drugs – related procedures of the Service of Pharmacy at the Ministry of Public Health. “MedLeb” helps improving the procedures followed, enhancing transparency, ensuring preparedness, and maximizing financial management.

Oummal aims to automate 5 modules: the registration of drugs, their pricing, the importation of drugs, their inspection, and their tracking.

The module of the importation of drugs and the module of drugs reception by the central inspection of the Service of Pharmacy have been developed and in use the first by the agents and the second the central inspection of the Service. Soon, the modules of drugs registration and pricing will be developed. Regarding the tracking module, Oummal is able to include it in the “MedLeb” or to link the “MedLeb” via API to any other tracking program.

In the drug importation module, the agent fills the automated import request, the Import – Export department checks the request first, the Service of Pharmacy second and the Minister of Public Health at last. They can give approval on the request quantity, or denies it, or request it to be edited, in that case the agent is notified to edit the quantity and attach a new proforma invoice. Upon approval, the agent attaches the required documents to complete the financial procedures.

Filters and comparison tools by dates, prices, agents, CIF or FOB, brand or generic, countries, and subsidization can be applied, and the total amount can be automatically calculated in several currencies with every approved request in order not to exceed the ceiling allocation.

In the drugs inspection module, the central inspection at the Service of Pharmacy verifies the quantity of drugs received upon arrival to the country in addition to the batch details ensuring the drug safety for use.

Aside from automation, the “MedLeb” software is very flexible and versatile: any option, design or format in it can be easily updated, changed, removed or set with a criterion. This feature is highly required with the optimal changes that are being done and those that still have to be done to hop over the country’s economic crisis successfully.

Oummal will be done adding, updating and testing all the features of the “MedLeb” by the end of November 2022, the program will be granted to ministry of public health along with the database and its source code. For that reason, the ministry is already working on procuring additional servers.

The hotline 1214, linked to the National Covid-19 Vaccination Contact Center ran by Oummal

From 12.02.21 Oummal started managing the National COVID19 vaccination hotline 1214, and designed successful procedures to solve the callers’ grievances categorized into more than 25 topics.

The call center was operating 16 hours per day, 7 days per week. The team was formed of 6 operators and 1 supervisor per shift. From 19.03.21 the staff number increased to 10 operators, 2 operators plus and 2 supervisors per shift. From 01.06.21 the human resources department reconstructed the schedule and the contact center started operating with 15 operators during the am shift, 13 operators during the pm shift, 2 supervisors on each shift and one team leader.

The hotline was receiving an average of 2,500 calls per day. With the first increase in staff number, 80% of the calls were answered instead of 40%. After the restructure of the schedules, now 98% of the calls received are answered.

The calls are documented on a software designed by the programmers at Oummal. The software is flexible easily adjustable for the process of documentation and cases follow up, for faster and logged inter-communication between the agent and the supervisor and between Oummal and all concerned parties that were given access to certain modules in it like the module of the medical exceptions that we will mention later on.

The employees from all over Lebanon were working remotely and very well trained through the recruiting procedure and through an in situ monthly training. The training focused on communication and technical skills, competencies in software use and data entry, information update, overview on new procedures and official statements, it also included an in situ live training and case studies. The performance of the operators is evaluated by the supervisors who simultaneously monitor the calls received by the operators, their content, duration, hold period and handling.

The access to the callers’ information and the callers’ appointment and vaccination status was gradually obtained with the increase in need for it throughout tools provided to us by IMPACT. By that, in addition to registering the callers through a codeless procedure, the operators were able to confirm for them their registration status, their registration information, their vaccination status and appointment information, and to resend for them their deleted messages.

The operators and supervisors have signed a consent to adhere to the privacy and data protection standards related to the data they can access. They pledge to maintain the confidentiality of personal information and restrain from sharing any of it.

The operators and supervisors were given several tools that helped them change the vaccination center in accordance with the type of vaccination, to reschedule the appointment date, to change the vaccination status from scheduled to ready or rejected, and to unlock the information editing tool so that the callers could edit their non-essential information.

The medical exceptions:

The hotline received calls from people with serious health conditions who hoped to take the vaccination early instead of waiting for their age category according to the national deployment plan. Their cases were very complicated. Some of them were suffering from several diseases at once, others had urgent surgeries to go through. We documented their condition with details and referred them to the concerned party. We have designed a module on our documentation software specific for the medical cases and exceptions. On this module, the information of the patient can be submitted and the required documents attached after downloading them from the medical exception form filled by the patient. The team of health assistants would verify these files, and attach them to the software. They would tick the boxes conform with the patient’s health condition and make sure all his information is documented correctly. Then the patient would get an approval and receive the vaccination appointment message.

The operation support team:

The work of the operation support team was divided into solving people’s issues through the request forms they were submitting and providing technical live support for the vaccination centers. The forms included requests for changing the essential information and requests for early vaccination for the following reasons: serious medical condition, surgical operation, traveling to study and traveling to work. The team would validate the requests, check the proving documents, approve the requests and send the vaccination appointment messages to the requestors.

Mobile clinic for vaccination, launched by Oummal, targeting underserved areas, schools and elderly care homes.

The operators of Vaccination Contact Center managed by Oummal have documented more than 1800 cases of people in need for vaccination but with difficulties to reach the vaccination center due to several reasons: critical health conditions, advanced age, the place of residence of the caller is different from the place of birth registered, mobility issues and lack in the means of transportation in addition to the price of fuel, the far distance of the unique vaccination center in the underserved area, the residency of a large group in a center: elderly, people with special needs, students, etc.

Oummal Mobile Vaccination was launched on the 14th of December 2021, and it was operational on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Our target was to reach people living in underserved areas, high-risk groups, essential workers, stateless people, rural communities, elders and students.

The clinic layout had 5 area plans: the waiting area, the data area, the vaccination preparation area, the vaccination area and the monitoring area. These areas are always previously discussed with the concerned party to be set on the vaccination day. The mobile vaccination clinic is well equipped, technically, logistically and medically, so in case the location is not prepared, has no supplies, tools or material for vaccination, the clinic can be set in a matter of less than one hour.

School-located vaccination: School-located vaccination is very convenient since students in large numbers are already present in one vast space with their parents’ consent where they can be checked for vaccine eligibility, registered for vaccination on the platform and vaccinated on spot. The vaccinators at Oummal are trained on working with children and adolescents and on answering any concern that the students or the parents might have regarding the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, its side effects and its composition and importance. We have vaccinated 3,142 persons in schools till the 13th of March. Some of the teachers, the administrative staff and principals of the school and the parents of the students were as well vaccinated upon their wish.

Elderly-homes-located vaccination: The vaccination at elderly homes was partially covered before we started with the mobile vaccination since their age category was targeted earlier in the vaccination deployment plan. We have vaccinated 348 elderly persons living in a care center with close supervision from their physician and the healthcare assistants. We made sure that all their documents and information were prepared before our visit so they don’t have to wait for the registration on the platform.

Lists of the schools and elderly homes vaccinated by Oummal mobile vaccination clinic:

• Schools:
  • مدرسة الحيصة الرسمية
  • مدرسة الهداية الاسلامية
  • مدراسة الرواد الدولية
  • مدرسة شان الرسمية
  • ثانوية الشهيد رفيق الحريري الرسمية - ببنين عكار
  • ع ن ي الذهب الرسمية المختلطة
  • شير حمريين الرسمية المختلطة عكار
  • ثانوية برقايل الرسمية (البنات)
  • ثانوية برقايل الرسمية (البنين)
  • مدرسة الارشاد الوطنية التموذجية
  • راهبات المحبة دار النور
  • مدرسة البداوي المتوسطة للبنات
  • الغزا ي ل الرسمية للصبيان
  • مدرسة الصلاح الرسمية
• Elderly Homes:
  • دار الراحة - زغرتا
  • جمعية الخدمات الإجتماعية
  • مركز مكارم الأخلاق
  • دار الراحة مجدليا

UHC-ON

Health coverage is the payment or the reimbursement of patients’ healthcare costs under a health plan offered in connection with employment or a government program or a private insurance. In Lebanon, the public health guarantors for civilians are the NSSF, the MoPH (Ministry of Public Health) and the state employees’ cooperation. In 2017, Oummal hosted a workshop including all healthcare actors coming up with recommendations to enhance the health coverage in Lebanon. Some of the most important recommendations were: activating the coordination and cooperation committee between all the guarantors, setting a limit to the hospitalization fees, unifying the sources of import of medical supplies and equipment, submitting a bill for a contract to be done between the guarantors and the hospitals in a patient-centered approach, and unifying a hotline for all guarantors in order to have a maintained service for all patients from which resulted the UHC-ON.

The Universal Health Coverage National Observatory The Universal Health Coverage National Observatory is a platform for patient financial and legal protection. Through the UHCON, Oummal plays the role of the mediator between the patients, the public guarantors and the healthcare providers. Oummal cares deeply about playing this role and ensuring that the patient enjoys his right to health while preserving her or his dignity without having to contact a political or a sectorial party.

The contact center of Oummal is the pillar of the UHC-ON activity. It has the UCM feature which is a progressive technology maximizing the efficiency and the effectivity of the calls handling. The contact center involves as well documentation programs designed and developed at Oummal to offer the best beneficiary service.

The project aims to receive, analyze and solve the patients’ grievances through the hotline #2424 (a low-cost name tag that is easy to memorize), to ensure the auditing of the hospitalization bills and to monitor and report breaches committed by the hospitals or the monitoring doctors to the public guarantors responsible to take appropriate actions. Consequently, Oummal would be able empower the patients through an approach based on them, to support the public institutions and to recommend adjustments to the national health coverage services and schemes.

The main guarantor cooperating with Oummal is the NSSF receiving biweekly reports of the calls, the patients’ cases, the hospitalization fees and the procedure and follow-ups details.

In December 2020, the COVID-19 hospitalization cases started arising, the UHC-ON started receiving complaints about the lack of hospital beds and the high hospitalization fees. To solve these issues, Oummal developed a dashboard for COVID beds available in the hospitals and shared with the operators of the UHC-ON and the NSSF, and as a preventive action that could help reduce the hospitalization risk altogether, Oummal decided to share its expertise in call centers by managing the contact center of the vaccination hotline.