SIAPS’ Capacity Building Efforts to Improve the Dominican Republic’s Health Management System

The Systems for Improved Access to Pharmaceuticals and Services (SIAPS) Program has designed and implemented a certificate course to ensure the strengthening and sustainability of rational medicine use in the Dominican Republic. Universidad Central del Este (UCE) conducted the first course to thirty-two students in mid-2016 and shall conduct a second course in the last quarter of 2016 with technical assistance from the SIAPS Program and USAID funding. Personnel of the Dominican regulatory agency, members of pharmacy and therapeutics committees, and hospital opinion-leading prescribers were among the pioneer students who successfully completed the course in June 2016. As part of the Dominican government’s measures to promote the rational use of medicines, registration fees shall be subsidized for the subsequent cohorts of students until a critical mass of qualified professionals is reached. In 2010, the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Public Health established the management system for drugs and medical supplies (SUGEMI) with assistance of the SIAPS Program financed by USAID. SUGEMI’s impact on access to medicines is dependent upon two factors: efficient supply chain and rational use of available medicines. The SIAPS’ certificate course is aimed at improving the latter.