Over 1 million medication dosages checked with new AI powered visual verification technology
MedEye, a medication safety system powered by artificial intelligence to help nurses stop and prevent medication errors, has checked over a million administrations in hospitals in the Netherlands, Belgium, Iceland, and the United Kingdom since its launch in 2016. To date, the system has prevented 100,000 medication errors including approximately 13,000 related to incorrect dose. MedEye is the only technology capable of detecting dosing errors in hospitals.
A challenge in patient safety
“Reduction of Medication errors remains a challenge in patient safety” commented Prof. dr. Toine Egberts Professor of clinical pharmacy at Utrecht University. “The most important errors in the medication management process occur in the prescribing stage, during medication administration and when patients transition between health care settings. During medication administration it is first important to check whether the drug that is going to be administered to the patient according to the medication order, and second the drug has to be administered with the right technique. MedEye has shown to significantly contribute to the reduction of the first category of administration errors. The MedEye technique is likely to be more sustainable than current methods and technologies.”
Experience with MedEye
Hospital pharmacist, Dr. Michiel Duyvendak, has been working with the system at Antonius Hospital in Sneek since 2014, "International research has shown that barcode control on its own can prevent 50% of administration errors, but for the other 50% we were looking for additional technologies that could help our nurses with these complex tasks. MedEye provides us with the right option with their photo recognition hardware and intelligent software. Together we are now developing advanced support for high-risk medication so that the risk of errors is reduced significantly."
Preventing as well as stopping errors
Gauti Reynisson, co-founder of MedEye commented: “ Every patient who suffers harm due to an avoidable error is one too many. We knew that many errors are made during manual medication processes in hospitals that nurses are not always able to detect due to the busy and distracting working environment. By using MedEye at the bedside, nurses have avoided many errors and prevented harm with this new way of working.
“Avoidable errors lead to additional costs for the hospital and the taxpayer. We have observed that following adption of MedEye, error rates drop quickly because of the syetem‘s machine learning ability to identify weaknesses in prescription and logistics processes and prevent those errors from recurring. Our goal is not only to minimise the number of bedside corrections needed but also to ensure that proceses as a whole become safer.“
MedEye used in over 10% of Dutch hospitals
MedEye acts as a second nurse for faster and safer verification while saving time and costs for hospitals. The benefits offered by the system have resulted in rapid adoption with 10% of Dutch hospitals now using the technology within two years. MedEye verifies all types of medication and delivery methods from oral administration and injection to infusion and can check fixed, variable, and fractional doses. The system is able to verify multiple medications and document them in a Electronic Healthcare Register (EHR) with a single scan, streamlining medication administration processes and improving efficiency and accuracy when administering high-risk medication.
Medication Safety
Medication safety is an important theme in healthcare. Research has shown that medication errors are typically considered the most common medical errors in healthcare institutions.* Since 2010, electronic prescriptions are mandatory in the Netherlands to help make sure the prescription is correct. Now, with the help of MedEye, it is possible to close the loop to make sure that the correct medication is given to the patient with the right dose.
About MedEye
MedEye was founded with the mission of helping nurses give medications to patients safely and efficiently. The solution consists of software and hardware which is used at the patient bedside. MedEye is equipped with a scanner for pills and capsules and uses cameras to identify other medications. Verification is performed by nurse showing the medications to the MedEye visual recognition modules. Using machine learning, MedEye compares against the hospital information system and verifies the accuracy of the medication against the Five Rights of medication administration; the right patient, the right drug, the right time, the right dose, and the right route—all of which are regarded as the standard for safe medication practices.