NMRA to partner with Epic Technology Group to Automate Operations and Services

Tuesday, 18 September 2018 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

The National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA) of Sri Lanka has announced an innovative partnership with tech giant Epic Technology Group, supported by the Information & Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) of Sri Lanka to streamline its operations and services.

For a 5-year contract, NMRA has selected Epic Technology Group’s DoxPro Enterprise Content Management Platform to develop a Document and Workflow Management System that would digitally transform its current processes.

NMRA is the institution in which the Ministry of Health of Sri Lanka has vested the authority to ensure that the pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and borderline products available to the public meet the required standards of quality and are within the existing legislative framework with respect to the production, marketing and dispensing of these items.

Under the leadership of Prof. Asita de Silva as the Chairman and Dr Kamal Jayasinghe as the Chief Executive Officer / Director General, NMRA is undergoing dramatic restructuring and reforms including re-orientation and retraining of NMRA staff, expansion of NMRA offices, upgrading the quality assurance laboratory, stricter enforcement of drug regulations, confiscation and destruction of counterfeit drugs, and public awareness campaigns. The aim is to fully implement NMRA’s mandate of to “safeguard the health of the nation”.

NMRA Chairman Prof. Asita de Silva describes current manual systems as “archaic and inefficient” and says the Medicines Regulator expects Epic’s DoxPro “end to end Information-as-a-service” model would “exponentially lower the cost of operations, save thousands of labour hours annually spent on regulatory process and help the NMRA achieve regulatory excellence.

Epic’s major focus will be on simplifying systems and leveraging savings across the divisions of NMRA. The new system – a pioneering transformational e-government solution, will enable the NMRA’s divisions to bring down processing time significantly. The new system, which is expected to be in place by end-November 2018, will manage document and workflow processing related to issuing certificates for drugs, devices and borderline products and activities of its subdivisions. Furthermore, a comprehensive accounting module including an electronic payment gateway will also be integrated with the proposed system.

“EPIC Technology Group is proud to have the opportunity to work alongside NMRA and ICTA to deliver this project focused on achieving maximum effectiveness in Public Service,” said Epic Lanka Technologies Chief Operating Officer Thareendra Kalpage. Working with multiple stakeholders across various government institutes, the integrated project team – led by, Prof. Asita de Silva, working closely with Dr Kamal Jayasinghe, NMRA staff and ICTA Program Manager Shriyananda Rathnayake – introduced this concept for of state-of-the-art document and workflow management system to significantly improve efficiency of services provided by the authority, as well as increase transparency.