Sheba Medical Bolsters Patient Safety Practices With MedAware®'s Medication Safety Platform

AI-based software helps Israel's largest medical center accurately flag medication errors and adverse drug events with unprecedented accuracy

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MedAware

Sep 12, 2018, 08:49 ET

RAANANA, Israel, September 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

MedAware, a developer of AI-based patient safety solutions, today announced the results of the implementation of its flagship medication safety platform at Sheba Medical Center. In stark contrast to traditional rules-based approaches, MedAware leverages big data analytics and machine learning algorithms to flag potential dangerous medication outliers to the learned profiles of the patient, physician, or institution, with high accuracy and low alert fatigue.

On average, MedAware flags one warning, per department, per day, for a total of approximately 50 unique interventions at the hospital daily. Due to the low alert burden and high accuracy of these clinical interventions, Sheba's providers always pay attention to MedAware's warnings, and as a result, typically choose to revise their prescriptions when they are notified of such risks. This has resulted in unprecedentedly high physician acceptance rates, safer patient care, and improved clinical outcomes.

Sheba Medical Center, a 1,900-bed referral hospital, serves as one of Israel's national medical centers. It is the largest and most comprehensive medical center in the Middle East and treats over one million patients annually.

"Within the medical profession there are shocking statistics when it comes to the growing number of medication errors," explained Dr. Eyal Zimlichman, Deputy Director and Chief Medical Officer at Sheba Medical Center. "MedAware's technology was tested within our internal medicine department with very successful results, including 80 percent accuracy of MedAware warnings -- an impressive statistic. As a result, Sheba has decided to rollout the MedAware program across the entire hospital, within the various medical divisions, including surgical, pediatrics and OBGYN. MedAware has become a reality at Sheba and it's life-saving technology is an absolute essential in hospitals of all sizes."

MedAware's systematic and data-driven approach protects physicians and their patients both at the point of order entry and throughout the duration of treatment. In Sheba's initial results with MedAware, 39 percent of potentially dangerous medications were flagged by the software during the medication ordering process, while 61 percent were generated later, following a change in the patient's clinical status that rendered one of the active medications as unsafe. In the majority of these cases, physicians adjusted the prescription as a result of MedAware's warning.

"We have worked together with MedAware to hone its accuracy for our demographics and practice patterns by integrating new clinical parameters for analysis - all of which has led to even more impressive performance results," said Dr. Gadi Segal, Head, Internal Medicine "T" at Sheba Medical Center. "The true value of MedAware is evidenced by the high physician acceptance rate of its notifications. The numbers are impressive, and the results have exceeded our expectations."

"After discussing with Sheba's leadership some of the drawbacks and challenges they experienced with their legacy decision support solutions, we were initially concerned that providers would respond reluctantly to our interventions. We quickly learned that this concern was unfounded, and we are beyond pleased by the continued positive daily impact of our work. Our accurate interventions are not considered a nuisance to physicians but rather a benefit, and we are helping to create a safer prescribing environment for providers and their patients," said Dr. Gidi Stein, MedAware co-founder and CEO. "Sheba Medical Center has been a wonderful partner since the beginning of our journey, and this clear validation of our technology further proves how MedAware's platform can drastically improve patient safety and outcomes."

About MedAware

MedAware is transforming patient safety through AI-empowered clinical decision support solutions. By continuously mining data gathered from electronic health records and prescription drug claims, MedAware's flagship solution accurately detects potentially dangerous medications that are in conflict with the profiles of the patient, physician or institution. The company's unique, real-time approach warns providers against point of order entry errors and evolving adverse drug events, identifies patient specific risk factors, such as opioid dependency and highlights gaps in care. MedAware's system improves patient safety and significantly reduces avoidable risks and costs each day. For more information, please visit http://www.medaware.com.

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SOURCE MedAware