-Automatic translation
Responsible party: Directorate of Health
Processor: Directorate of Health
Purpose: To gather knowledge on prescriptions and the use of medicines, to monitor physician's prescriptions and the use of pharmaceuticals. Information from the database may be used for scientific research. Physicians involved in patients' treatment have access to their patient's medical information, and individuals have access to their own use of medicines through the web Heilsuvera.is.
Content: The Prescription Medicines Register contains information on all prescriptions and dispensations, both electronic and paper. As of 2013, the Register covers all electronic prescriptions outside hospitals and the dispensing of prescription pharmaceuticals outside hospitals. The Register does not include the use of pharmaceuticals in hospitals.
Period: Electronic Register with data from 2002. Currently, about 3.500.000 entries are received annually in the Prescription Medicines Register.
Source of data: Information from electronic prescriptions and dispensations of prescriptions from pharmacies, prescriptions to nursing homes, and paper prescriptions registered in pharmacies and sent electronically to the Prescription Medicines Register.
Items to be recorded: Various aspects related to the prescription and dispensing of pharmaceuticals as well as information on the prescribed pharmaceuticals. Recorded information includes, among other things, the dispensing date and location, the ATC code of the medicinal product, the prescribed amount, usage instructions, and information on the prescriber.
List of variables: Prescription Medicines Register - list of variables (Icelandic)
Comparable or related data sets: All Nordic countries operate some national Prescriptions Medicines Register.
Processing and publication: The Directorate of Health publishes statistics on the use of pharmaceuticals regularly, both in interactive dashboards and in Talnabrunnur, the Directorate of Health‘s newsletter on health information.
History: The origin of the Directorate of Health's Prescription Medicines Register can be traced back to 2003, when it was first defined in the Medicines Act no. 93/1994, with subsequent amendments. The Directorate of Health started operating the Register in 2005, which has since then contained information about all prescription drugs pharmacies have dispensed since the beginning of 2002. Initially, information about dispensed medicine was transferred electronically to the Prescription Medicines Register through the Social Insurance Administration and later the Icelandic Health Insurance, where it was initially updated every four weeks and later every two weeks. Changes to the Act on medicinal products in 2012 allowed doctors access to their patients' medication information and to individuals to access their own medicinal histories. To accommodate this expanded role of the Prescription Medicines Register, a new database was developed that is updated in real-time."
