Pharmapod
A Revolutionary Solution in Mitigating Medication Errors

Having had over 20 years of experience as a pharmacist, Leonora O’Brien, CEO, & Founder of Pharmapod, witnessed first-hand the adverse outcomes that medication errors can lead to. Historically, healthcare teams have a siloed approach regarding medication safety. There is a lack of a transparent system and an inability to benchmark safety practices on a national and international basis using real-time data. “Every year, an overall human cost of medication errors in Europe alone is 3.2 million days of hospitalization, and 260,000 incidents of permanent disability. This results in a global annual financial cost of over $42 Billion,” says Leonora.

Pharmapod has a global healthcare intelligence and quality platform positioned as the ‘go-to’ source for data and validated learning, improving patient safety, and reducing medication errors. The SaaS cloud-based Pharmapod system comprises of a comprehensive suite of Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) tools to help pharmacies, hospitals and long-term care facilities with their analysis of incidents that can record data in an anonymous, aggregated fashion, allowing information relating to medication errors to be shared locally, nationally and internationally. This enables healthcare professionals to learn from these errors recorded and put procedures in place so that they are reduced on a global level. Tools available within the platform include root-cause analysis, the risk matrix and 5-Whys which fosters a standardized approach to CQI.

Presently, CIO’s of pharmaceutical sector are facing issues concerning security, transparency, data protection, and access to relevant analytics. Also, incident audit trail is a key requirement in the healthcare space which legacy system fails to capture. Pharmapod system seamlessly captures data and aggregates them across a shielded infrastructure that allows organizations to transmit information securely and efficiently through APIs to required stakeholders. Additionally, the platform facilitates the development of common mutually agreed datasets, enabling controlled data aggregation from multiple sources. It also provides feasibility for provincial regulators to collect data to meet their local regulatory and compliance requirements. The incident data to the aggregate provincial dataset is 100% anonymous— patient or personally identifiable information is not included.

Medication errors cannot be tackled successfully without a dedicated global learning health system, underpinned by a fully integrated infrastructure

Pharmapod also houses a best-in-class data warehouse, which is completely customizable as per individual regulators requirements. They can either choose from ‘off-the-shelf’ reports and analytics, or customize their reports based on current and evolving needs.

Furthermore, Pharmapod works alongside regulators to develop CQI training program for pharmacies. For, their standardized approach to medication safety practice emphasizes learning and accountability, through a culture where healthcare professionals are comfortable in bringing forward medication incidents without fear of investigation or disciplinary outcomes. The company offers an e-Training education tool—encompassing a range of teaching techniques including diagrams, infographics, and quizzes that enables learning in a user-friendly way.

With such multi-pronged solutions, Pharmapod is ideally positioned to revolutionize the medication safety landscape. “In comparison to other key players in the market, we differ because we are professionally led by pharmacy professionals,” says Leonora O’Brien, founder, & CEO, Pharmapod. Looking ahead, the company is further planning to diversify its offerings. Pharmapod has a solution for long-term care facilities and in March, partnered with Remedy’sRx Specialty Pharmacy to extend the Pharmapod solution to the Long- Term Care, Retirement, Supportive Living and Group Home sector. Later this year, the company will also have a wide range of CQI tools and platforms for Incident Management in hospital pharmacy care. “We will also have a range of clinical service modules available for pharmacy care providers. So, 2019 is going to be a busy time for us, and we are excited to see the assistance and support that our platform will bring to organizations around the world to achieve global patient safety” concludes Leonora.