Improving Medication Safety Through Alert Mechanisms For High-Risk Prescribed Drugs

Our Client

A USA-based medical company with a chain of 10+ hospitals and facility centers, each serving 1.2M+ patients annually.
With a reputation of being a preferred choice for healthcare services within the states, they are known for their advanced medical treatments, compassionate care, skilled medical professionals, and patient-centric treatment approach.

Problem Statement

The board members and doctors in the medical giant recognized the pressing need for better medication compliance and safety within their healthcare facilities. With a vast dataset of over 20 million patient records, our client wanted to eliminate medication errors(to an extent) and harmful drug reactions in any treatment. With this, they presented several objectives and challenges to the table:

Primary Objectives:

Management of two medications with comparable therapeutic uses
Integration of pregnancy precautions
Consideration for lactating mothers
Monitoring and mitigation of potential drug-drug interactions
Implementation of dose range checks
Vigilance regarding drug allergies

Challenges to be taken care of:

Inefficient Data Management:

The client struggled with inefficient data management and lacked a streamlined process for extracting, transforming, and loading data(patient records) into their existing analytics system.
Lack of Real-time Alerts:

The absence of real-time alerts and recommendations for alternative medications made it difficult for the stakeholders to rectify treatment-related issues promptly.
High Medication-Related Risks:

The use of high-risk drugs within the healthcare setting increased the complications among patients.

Our Solution

After reviewing the objectives and challenges, our analytics experts identified the need to develop a medication oversight system. This system aimed to manage medications effectively, optimize data processes for better analytics, establish real-time alerts, and manage high-risk drugs within the healthcare IT sector.

Data Integration: To efficiently handle medication-related data, we performed real-time data capture from various sources within the healthcare system, such as Electronic Health Records (EHRs), pharmacy management systems, and laboratory databases.
ETL Process: DataToBiz implemented ETL tools to extract, transform, and load data from multiple sources, including EHRs and pharmacy records, into a centralized data warehouse.
Data Validation Framework: Automated data checks, consistency checks, and data profiling were established to ensure data quality and reliability.
Amazon Redshift Usage: Amazon Redshift was employed as the data warehousing solution for scalable and high-performance storage of treatments and medication-related data.
Tableau Integration: Tableau was integrated with Amazon Redshift to facilitate seamless data extraction for visualization.
Alerting Mechanism: An alerting mechanism was integrated into Tableau dashboards to notify healthcare providers of illegal or contraindicated drugs, with recommendations for alternative medications.

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Business Impact

The implementation of these technologically advanced solutions led to significant improvements in over 10+ hospitals, the results were valid and visible:

- Better Medication Safety: The alerting system significantly reduced the usage of illegal and contraindicated medications by 25%, ensuring patient safety and well-being.
- Enhanced Decision Support: After implementing the live alert systems in place, involved stakeholders now had access to evidence-based recommendations, ensuring better-informed decisions regarding medication management.
- Improved Medication Compliance: Healthcare providers can now track patient medication compliance in real-time, leading to a 20% increase in better outcomes and fewer complications and casualties among high-risk patients.
- Efficient Data Management: The ETL process and Redshift data warehousing streamlined data management, making it 30% easier to access and analyze critical medical information.
- Cost Savings: By reducing medication errors and adverse events, the client saved substantial costs, estimating a 15% decrease in expenses associated with potential lawsuits, treatment of complications, and prolonged patient stays.