Ballad Health partners with MedAware to leverage artificial intelligence platform to improve patient safety and optimize pharmacy workflows

Ballad Health is partnering with Israeli-based MedAware, Ltd., to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to improve patient safety by identifying potential medication-related errors and improving operational efficiency within the pharmacy.

MedAware’s patented AI software, coupled with data from the health system’s electronic health record, will allow for real-time evaluation of prescribed drugs against a specific and up-to-date patient profile.

MedAware’s medication safety monitoring platform runs 24/7, providing accurate and timely clinical insights at all points of medication access and delivery. Its suite of predictive and statistical models continuously analyzes prescribing patterns, accurately flagging medications that conflict with the profiles of the patient, physician and institution, thereby enabling timely interventions and education before dangerous medication-related events can occur.

“We are thrilled to partner with MedAware,” said Trish Tanner, chief pharmacy officer for Ballad Health. “This innovative technology will help us provide our patients with the highest quality of care by ensuring they receive the right medications at the right time.”

The partnership with MedAware is the direct result of the Ballad Health Innovation Center and Ballad Ventures working together to actively transform how healthcare is provided – within the Appalachian Highlands and throughout the healthcare industry."

“Our goal at the Ballad Health Innovation Center is to drive the development of innovative healthcare solutions that revolutionize the industry, while bringing innovative solutions directly to our patients,” said Bo Wilkes, managing director of the Ballad Health Innovation Center. “Innovation is the key to transforming how we provide care – especially in rural America – and we are excited about the partnership with MedAware and its very tangible potential to enhance care.”

With this implementation, MedAware will act as a safety and workflow optimization layer within Ballad Health’s electronic health record and ecosystem. MedAware’s platform complements existing tools within the electronic health record to improve the actionability and acceptance rate of medication-based alerts. As a result, hard-to-anticipate errors are caught at the earliest possible stage – avoiding dangerous and even fatal drug interactions for patients. To do so, the software utilizes advanced machine-learning algorithms that mine data gathered by millions of electronic health records to detect outliers in prescribing behavior that could potentially be harmful and immediately flag them as life-threatening.

The algorithms also mitigate high false-alarm positive rates by integrating patient-specific information into decision support that accurately detects harm in real time, so prescribers and clinical care teams can act fast and save lives.

“MedAware dramatically improves the quality of alerts,” Tanner said. “Its accuracy significantly reduces alert fatigue, exponentially increasing the quality of actionable alerts for pharmacists.”

As a result, the software therefore also enables substantial savings in time and effort for pharmacists and providers.

“We are excited to partner with Ballad Health and look forward to working together to mitigate medication-related risks while improving pharmacy workflow efficiencies. MedAware’s AI-based data-driven solution was designed to mitigate these issues while providing substantial clinician satisfaction,” said David Franklin, CEO of MedAware.

Each year, nearly 8 million people in the United States are exposed to serious and preventable prescription errors. Of those, 7,000 to 9,000 people tragically die because of a medication error, according to a 2021 study published in the National Library of Medicine. An industry faced with a stressed physical and emotional state – which has been exacerbated by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic – can lead to more medication errors, as well, which has resulted in demand for an advanced decision support system, like MedAware, to help mitigate the risks of potentially harmful or fatal prescribing errors.

“MedAware is needed, it’s innovative, it’s life-saving, and we’re honored to add it to the Ballad Health ecosystem,” Tanner said. “Not only will it start making a difference for our patients from day one, but thanks to its algorithmic nature, it will require minimal human resources to maintain. Our pharmacists and caregivers will do the same excellent work they already do, but with this major safeguard in the background. It’s a game-changer in frontline healthcare delivery.”

MedAware is just one of several projects Ballad Health Innovation Center and Ballad Ventures, Ballad Health’s venture capital subsidiary, are pursuing that are intended to enhance patient care and have the potential to reach patients and healthcare delivery systems nationally and worldwide. More information is available at https://balladventures.com/.