Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MedEye (Accelerated market launch of MedEye, a plug-and-play medication safety solution)

Teaser

Medication errors are the single biggest source of harm in modern healthcare. Unfortunately, up to 20% of medication is incorrectly administered. Mistakes include the wrong medication, wrong dose, wrong time, wrong route, and even the wrong patient. Such errors can cause...

Summary

Medication errors are the single biggest source of harm in modern healthcare. Unfortunately, up to 20% of medication is incorrectly administered. Mistakes include the wrong medication, wrong dose, wrong time, wrong route, and even the wrong patient. Such errors can cause adverse drug reactions, lengthen hospital stays, and in the most severe cases lead to increased mortality. This poses a significant risk to the EU population.

Recently, Mint Solutions BV developed a turn-key system that offers an answer to this problem. MedEye scans medication at the bedside and verifies whether the correct medication is being administered. By integrating with a hospitals information system (HIS) and synchronizing with a patient’s electronic medical record (EMR), MedEye improves patient safety and reduces costs by making sure patients only get the right medication at the right time.

At the project start MedEye had been validated in independent pilots performed at three hospitals in The Netherlands (NL), showing that MedEye significantly reduced medication administration errors. In the meantime MedEye is rolled out in 8 NL hospitals, several Long Term Care facilities (LTCs) in NL and several contracts outside NL are under negotiation. The current project aims to overcome the last main hurdles towards further implementation of the Medeye on the European (EU) market:
• Firstly, hospitals and nursing homes use HIS systems for medication management. There are many HIS providers on the market, with no single provider holding a large market share over multiple EU countries. To gain access to a larger market, MedEye needs to be integrated with more HIS providers (WP2).
• Secondly, to convince end-users in EU hospitals and LTCs, MedEye needs to be convincingly demonstrated in more countries outside of NL that have different infrastructures and regulations. Transnational proof of performance data needs to be generated outside the scope of the NL to facilitate market uptake in EU (WP3,4).

To overcome these main hurdles and push MedEye further into EU hospitals and LTCs, the following key objectives are performed in this 3,5-year project:

Technical objectives:
• Perform software development for integration of MedEye with the largest HIS providers (WP2).
• Perform software development to enable a distributor-based business model.

Business objectives:
• Perform a proof of performance pilot in a UK hospital (WP3).
• Perform a proof of performance pilot in a Belgian (BE) LTC facility (WP4).
• Compose a comprehensive commercialization strategy for a EU-wide launch (WP5).

Work performed

WP2: A new version of MedEye was released including Medication Service, which enables MedEye to work with different medication code systems and gradually build a medication database. The user interface has been updated to improve the user friendliness and make sure all data management meets GDPR guidelines. Furthermore, the medication library is updated extensively including the connected EAN barcodes. The MedEye system has been integrated with multiple HIS systems, which number is constantly increasing. For the implementation in a UK hospital, the MedEye software had to be integrated into the local HIS. This turned out more difficult than anticipated resulting in the incorporation of JASEHealth to implement MedEye into the HIS at NUTH.

WP3: The pilot study at NUTH is almost ready to start. A technical pilot has been performed and the first nurses have verified medications. Ethical approval has been granted. The pilot study will be performed at 2 NUTH wards. Extensive testing was conducted at NUTH between Feb-July 2019. This involved testing of the user interface, medication mapping and integration. Issues were recorded and where possible resolved by the Hospital IT team, MINT and/or JASEHealth. The first nurses began testing MedEye in the Live Cerner environment in August 2019. The process of optimising the software has taken longer than originally anticipated. The rollout of the “Global Digital Exemplar (GDE)-progam” of the NHS, will postpone the MedEye implementation. It is hoped that testing and optimalisation will continue in fall 2019 and ‘Go-Live’ should follow immediately after GDE.

WP4: Medeye was successfully implemented in 9 LTC facilities (69 devices). Baseline-measurements were performed to assess the medication and administration workflow at LTC facilities. More than 500 nurses were trained and added as users to the Medeye system and are now able to use Medeye in their day-to-day work. The pilot studies have been completed. Preliminary results indicate that MedEye improves identification and prevention of administration errors and that workflow efficiency with MedEye technology rapidly improves over time. Two psychiatric institutions have signed a contract with MedEye too. Rollout is from beginning of October 2019 onwards.

WP5: The commercialization strategy is constantly updated. Recently, after the successful implemention at Interzorg, the Medeye system has now been implemented at a second LTC organization in NL: Present. With this implementation, MedEye is now integrated in the most widely spread medication management system in LTC organizations in NL. Because of the success of each LTC installation in NL and BE, MINT expects to be able to make concrete steps and expand the client portfolio within the next 12 months.

WP6: Dissemination and communication activities are ongoing on a diversity of platforms to reach all stakeholders (general public, end-users, decision makers, KOLs). Activities include (social) media coverage towards the general public (including an article in the NL national newspaper Telegraaf with reader coverage over 1 million), presentations at conferences, end-user trainings and a webinar. The dissemination and communication strategy is continuously updated. Activities will be spread further across the EU countries once the results of the pilot studies in BE and UK are available.

Final results

The integration of Medeye with additional HIS providers will continue and the medication database will be continuously updated. The proof of concept study in a UK hospital will provide valuable information for future implementation of Medeye in EU hospitals. The results of the pilot studies in BE LTCs are very positive. Further data analysis will provide insight to provide Medeye to LTCs across EU, a process that is already ongoing. First measure of success are the implementations at LTC organisations in NL and two psychiatric prisons in BE.

Potential impact
Providing patients with the correct medication is a complex task with many error-prone steps. The sequence of events, from prescription by a doctor to administration by a nurse, is a value chain. MedEye provides significant improvements and value at multiple points along this chain but with a strong focus on the final step where most errors are made: right before medication is administered to the patient. With this funding from Horizon, the consortium will be able to perform the necessary developments to access the EU market faster and increase market take-up. Ultimately providing increased medication safety towards patients.

Website & more info

More info: https://medeye.com/.