{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,1]],"date-time":"2026-09-01T06:15:02Z","timestamp":1788243302808,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":18,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,1]],"date-time":"2026-09-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1788220800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Digit. Health"],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Background<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>National-scale digital health platforms generate large volumes of usage data that provide insights into population-level healthcare needs. MediVerify, Sri Lanka's national online medicines information platform, providing public access to the registry of all National Medicines Regulatory Authority (NMRA)-approved products, recorded over 1.49 million queries in its first year of operation. However, systematic analysis of such large-scale medicine search behaviour in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) remains limited.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Objectives<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>(1) Characterise national medicine information-seeking behaviour using large-scale search logs; (2) identify mismatches between public demand and essential medicines policy; and (3) evaluate the technical performance and computational efficiency of a national digital health system.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>We conducted a retrospective observational analysis of 1,497,304 anonymised search queries on MediVerify between July 2024 and July 2025. Queries were normalised and mapped to a registry of 11,933 approved medicines using a multi-step pipeline including fuzzy matching (Levenshtein distance, threshold \u22645). Therapeutic categories were assigned using an Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC)-aligned classification. Query distributions, zero-query and zero-result patterns, and system performance metrics were analysed. Energy consumption was estimated from observed processing times.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Vitamins\/minerals (11.74%), antibiotics (10.57%), diabetes medications (7.02%), and antihypertensives (6.84%) dominated searches. The top 20 medicines comprised 37.3% of all queries. Approximately 40%\u201350% of registered medicines were never queried. Zero-result queries (\u223c1%) revealed unmet information needs. A significant divergence was observed between frequently searched medicines and essential medicines list (EML) designations. System performance was robust, with a median latency of 8\u2005ms and &amp;gt;99% query resolution. Estimated energy consumption was extremely low (\u223c0.12\u2005kWh per million queries).<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusions<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Large-scale medicine search data provide actionable insights into national healthcare information demand and policy alignment. MediVerify demonstrates that a national digital health platform can achieve high utilisation with minimal computational and environmental cost. Findings support integration of real-time usage analytics into pharmaceutical policy and highlight the potential of low-resource digital infrastructure in strengthening health systems in LMICs.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fdgth.2026.1855835","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,1]],"date-time":"2026-09-01T05:35:13Z","timestamp":1788240913000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Nationwide analysis of medicine search behaviour and system performance: a one-year evaluation of MediVerify in Sri Lanka (July 2024\u2013July 2025) based on 1.49 million search queries"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"8","author":[{"given":"Praveen Charuka","family":"Athauda-Arachchi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"British School in Colombo","place":["Sri Lanka"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Pandula Mahesh","family":"Athauda-Arachchi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Pharmacology and Cardiology, Faculty of Medicine, General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University","place":["Ratmalana, Colombo, Sri Lanka"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Rohini","family":"Fernandopulle","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Pharmacology and Cardiology, Faculty of Medicine, General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University","place":["Ratmalana, Colombo, Sri Lanka"]},{"name":"Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo","place":["Colombo, Sri Lanka"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"21","DOI":"10.4038\/sljm.v34i2.594","article-title":"Development and evaluation of MediVerify: a new digital database and search engine for registered medicines in Sri Lanka","volume":"34","author":"Athauda-Arachchi","year":"2025","journal-title":"Sri Lanka J Med"},{"key":"B2","volume-title":"Medicines: Safety of Medicines\u2014adverse Drug Reactions. 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