Medication Access
TASO facilitates access to medications and treatments for individuals living with NCDs, ensuring availability and affordability of essential medications such as insulin, blood pressure medications, cholesterol-lowering drugs, and cancer treatments.
Overview
By facilitating medication access and adherence, TASO helps individuals effectively manage their NCDs, prevent disease complications, and improve their overall health and quality of life. Through a combination of medication procurement, affordability initiatives, dispensing services, and adherence support, TASO ensures that individuals have access to the medications they need to control their NCDs and achieve optimal health outcomes.
Get to know TASO`s approach
Medication access is a crucial aspect of TASO’s comprehensive approach to managing non-communicable diseases (NCDs), ensuring that individuals have timely and affordable access to essential medications for conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, and cancer. Here’s how TASO facilitates medication access for individuals affected by NCDs:
Medication Procurement: TASO works to procure a range of essential medications for NCD management, including antihypertensive drugs, oral hypoglycemic agents, insulin, lipid-lowering medications, antiplatelet agents, and medications for cancer treatment and symptom management. TASO collaborates with pharmaceutical suppliers, wholesalers, and government health agencies to ensure a consistent supply of medications.
Formulary Development: TASO develops and maintains a formulary of essential medications for NCDs, based on evidence-based treatment guidelines, national treatment protocols, and local epidemiological data. The formulary includes a selection of safe, effective, and cost-effective medications appropriate for the management of common NCDs encountered within TASO’s client population.
Affordability: TASO strives to make essential NCD medications affordable and accessible to all individuals, regardless of their socioeconomic status. The organization negotiates with suppliers to obtain competitive pricing for medications and leverages partnerships with government health programs, insurance schemes, and donor agencies to subsidize medication costs for eligible clients.
Patient Assistance Programs: TASO operates patient assistance programs to support individuals who face financial barriers to accessing medications. These programs may provide medication subsidies, discounts, vouchers, or other forms of financial assistance to eligible clients, ensuring that cost is not a barrier to medication adherence and treatment continuity.
Dispensing Services: TASO offers medication dispensing services at its healthcare facilities, ensuring that clients have convenient access to their prescribed medications. Trained pharmacists and pharmacy technicians provide medication counseling, dosage instructions, and adherence support to clients, promoting safe and effective medication use.
Supply Chain Management: TASO implements robust supply chain management practices to ensure the timely distribution and availability of medications at its healthcare facilities. This includes inventory management, forecasting, procurement planning, transportation logistics, and quality assurance measures to maintain medication quality and integrity.
Adherence Support: TASO provides adherence support services to help individuals adhere to their prescribed medication regimens. This may involve medication counseling, reminders, pill organizers, medication synchronization, refill reminders, and follow-up consultations to monitor treatment progress and address barriers to adherence.
Medication Monitoring: TASO monitors medication usage and outcomes through routine medication reviews, clinical assessments, and laboratory tests. This allows healthcare providers to track treatment response, assess medication efficacy and safety, and make appropriate adjustments to treatment regimens as needed.