Robert Berry, COO of MedLynx Corp. displays a wireless hand held computer that would match hospital patients with their medical records and doctors prescriptions.
Start-up targets deadly drug mix-ups
Roger Gunter believes that if hospitals could track prescription drugs the way overnight mail services track packages, patients would never need to worry about deadly deliveries of the wrong drug or dosage to their bedsides. Gunter is chief technology officer of MedLynx Corp., a Littleton software start-up that is testing technology designed to simply and inexpensively prevent medical mistakes through wireless technology.
Gunter, an administrator for Colorado's Medicaid program and former Children's Hospital executive, and Gary Yewey, founder of two medical technology companies and former manager of drug delivery research at Atrix Laboratories, hatched the idea behind MedLynx while watching their sons' hockey games. The pair then brought in Robert Berry, a veteran of the banking industry, as partner. The group has funded the venture entirely with their own money. "This has been a dream of mine for nine years. I saw how mistakes can be devastating," said Gunter. "They're so preventable. Technology has finally caught up with the idea."
The MedLynx system uses wireless, hand-held computers that communicate with a hospital's existing information databases. The mobile devices use bar-code technology, similar to that used by shipping companies, to match patients with their medical records and doctor's prescriptions, among other things. A nurse scans his or her identification tag, the patient's identification tag and then pill packets or injection vials before administering a drug. The device uses the information to verify that the right patient is getting the right drug at the right dosage and warns the nurse if something doesn't match up. The units also display any drug interactions or allergies a patient might have to a particular drug. Hospitals can keep track of the number of times a near-miss is caught and implement corrective action plans.
Gunter said the MedLynx system could have prevented incidents like the one that killed an elderly woman at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Hospital in 1999. The woman died when a nurse gave her morphine intravenously instead of in her muscle as ordered. In a more recent case, an infant at Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C., was mistakenly given 5 milligrams of morphine instead of 0.5 milligrams as prescribed by her doctor, and suffered a heart attack and died. "That was easily preventable with a hand-held device," said Gunter.
Northern Michigan Hospital in Petoskey, Mich., installed a system similar to MedLynx in 1998. The only difference is that the Bridge Medication Management System that the hospital uses requires computer terminals installed in every patient's room and isn't wireless. The 243-bed hospital discovered medication errors are 50 percent to 98 percent greater than administrators had thought. Before installing the electronic tracking system, staff had simply reported errors or near-misses manually. And only 36 rooms were outfitted with the equipment. No Denver hospitals use such a system, although some are considering purchasing the technology in the future.
"Amazing' results foreseen
Gary Aden, national accounts manager for Bridge, said most companies developing bar-code technology for use at the patient bedside are still in the testing phases, but with widespread use, "the patient outcomes are going to be amazing."
Bar codes have been used in hospitals for years to track supplies from loading dock to medicine cabinet. But only in the last few years have pharmaceutical manufacturers started coding individual pill packets and vials, enabling technology developers like MedLynx to create tracking systems, said Robert Hankin, president of the Health Industry Business Communications Council in Phoenix. The council developed bar-code technology specifically for hospitals and clinics that can hold more information and is much more accurate than UPC codes used by retailers.
98,000 deaths estimated
The Institute of Medicine in Washington, D.C., estimates that as many as 98,000 hospitalized patients die of medical errors in the United States every year, many of them caused by improper administration of pharmaceuticals. In a now infamous 2000 report on medical mistakes in hospitals, the Institute called for at least a 50 percent reduction in medical errors within five years.
But many hospitals have balked at investing in technology that can prevent medical errors because of the cost, said Hankin. For example, Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital recently spent more than $1 million to install a mobile, computerized drug tracking system.
But the benefits - fewer errors, fewer lawsuits and fewer medical complications - can end up resulting in substantial savings, said Bob Berry, MedLynx chief operating officer. He noted, however, that many hospitals, particularly small, rural hospitals, can't afford the initial investment.
MedLynx, which hopes to have its drug error elimination system up and running at a Denver hospital by the end of the year, will give hospitals the hand-held devices and software at no cost. The company will charge a fee for each time a scanner is used, much like credit-card companies provide scanning machines to retailers and charge for each transaction, Berry said. The cost works out to about $1 to $2 per patient per day, he estimated.
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