Faces of Digital Health

According to WHO the occurrence of adverse events due to unsafe care is likely one of the 10 leading causes of death and disability in the world. Patient harm is caused by several healthcare issues. Healthcare-associated infections occur in 7 and 10 out of every 100 hospitalized patients in high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries respectively (11). Unsafe surgical care procedures cause complications in up to 25% of patients. Patient harm is caused by unsafe injections practices in health care settings, unsafe transfusion practices, diagnostic errors, radiation errors, sepsis is frequently not diagnosed early enough, Venous thromboembolism (blood clots) is one of the most common and preventable causes of patient harm. On top of the list are medication errors. Medication errors are a leading cause of injury and avoidable harm in health care systems: globally, the cost associated with medication errors has been estimated at US$ 42 billion annually.Abdulelah Alhawsawi is the Ex - founding Director-General of the Saudi Patient Safety Center (SPSC), and MOH Advisor on Patient Safety. He is a consultant to several national and international quality and safety organizations. has helped introduce Patient Safety as a G20 priority in the 2020 G20 of Saudi Arabia. Currently, Dr. Alhawsawi is part of the WHO’s Global Patient Safety Action Plan Taskforce. He has been trying to help improve patient safety throughout his career. As he says if patient safety becomes a priority as is safety in other industries, we can improve healthcare. At the moment, however, we still lack leadership and advocacy in this field. In this discussion you will hear an overview of factors obstructing patient safety improvement efforts and why, the secret to improve patient safety according to dr. Alhawsawi is better involved and empowered of patients in care planning and treatment execution.  This discussion was part of the discussion of the movie (OVER)DOSE - How can we prevent medication errors. See the movie and interviews with all the speakers: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/overdose-documentary Browse through other episodes as well: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com. US clinicians - earn CME credits: https://earnc.me/xfet5F All the future episodes of Faces of digital health will have links for earning CME credits.Leave a rating or a review: https://lovethepodcast.com/facesofdigitalhealth

Lea Dias is a former Medication Safety Pharmacist at Perth Children’s Hospital, now the Founder and CEO of Quaefacta. In 2013, the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust enabled her to go on a six-week tour around the world, to visit several hospitals in the US, UK, and Israel, and assess how various institutions used technologies for patient safety improvement. Three years later, she went on another tour to get additional insights from hospitals in Bulgaria, France, Spain, UK, Singapore and Thailand. She brought the knowledge back to Australia, where she led the implementation of a pharmacy robotics system. In this discussion, we talked about medication errors she saw in her clinical practice, the causes of those errors, and what were her takeaways from the two world tours related to patient safety. Today, Lea is using all that knowledge to build her company Quafecta, which aims to empower patients to make informed healthcare decisions via ownership of their own health data. !!For Medical Doctors in the USA: Based on the conversations happening here & how it applies to your day-to-day, please capture your reflections here to unlock AMA PRA Category 1 CMEs: https://earnc.me/Fb5PMcSee the documentary (OVER)DOSE - How can we prevent medication errors? https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/overdose-documentary

Some say fax machines still exist because of healthcare. Across the world, paper is still heavily used in healthcare. The NHS is on course to eliminate paper prescribing in hospitals and introduce digital prescribing across the entire NHS by 2024. From 2018 until the end of 2020, 216 NHS trusts have received funding to implement systems electronic prescriptions and medicines administration (ePMA). IT implementations in healthcare take several months. Clinicians need to use several systems, learn about updates of the system. Sometimes digitalization requires more time for documenting patient care. Therefore clinicians can be disappointed that most digital solutions at the moment aren’t high-tech decision support systems that would take away the cognitive load from clinicians. Digital systems still require clinicians to basically not expect the systems to think instead of them. In this discussion you will hear from Duncan Cripps - Electronic Prescribing and Medication Management Lead at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust. Duncan is a pharmacist by background and a lecturer. In this discussion, he outlined the current state of electronic prescribing in the UK, and talked about the challenges he sees in electronic prescribing in hospitals. One of the key things he looks forward to is the increase of interoperability between primary, secondary, and tertiary systems. This has the potential to bring a single source of truth about the patient to the physician. Consequently, transcription errors can be avoided. Medical Doctors in the USA - EARN CME credits: Based on the conversations happening here & how it applies to your day-to-day, please capture your reflections here to unlock AMA PRA Category 1 CMEs: https://earnc.me/Fb5PMcSee the documentary (OVER)DOSE - How can we prevent medication errors? https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/overdose-documentary

Do you know what clinical pharmacists do? For one thing, clinical pharmacists optimize patient’s medications. This can have a big impact on improving patient outcomes and patient quality of life. In today’s discussion, you’re going to hear from Dr. John Horn, Emeritus Professor of Pharmacy and Associate Director of the UW Medicine Pharmacy Services. He is co-author of the reference texts Drug Interactions Analysis and Management and The Top 100 Drug Interactions: A Guide to Patient Management. In addition to over 250 publications related to drug interactions, Dr. Horn has published in the areas of cardiovascular and gastrointestinal therapeutics and pharmacokinetics. You will hear: why are pharmacists integral team members in patient care, why is medication adherence in patients impossible to reach, dr Horn also shared his thoughts about the potential and near future of 3D printing. Teaser: he is very skeptical about seeing that work in practice.This interview was conducted for the purpose of the movie OVERDOSE - How can we prevent medication errors. If you haven’t yet, do check out the link in the show notes to watch the movie. As part of an awareness campaign about medication safety, full interviews with all speakers from the movie will be published until the end of the summer. See the movie and related content: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/overdose-documentary Browse through podcast content blog posts: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog

Being a doctor can be very gratifying when a life is saved or a patient is cured. However, the number of jobs and skills physicians need to master is increasing with the advancement of technology and science. This makes the medical environment increasingly stressful, also because at the moment, many IT solutions are burdensome and add the bureaucratic workload to the schedules of doctors. Today’s topic is how to doctors approach and manage medication prescribing. I spoke with David W. Bates, Patient Safety Expert and Harvard MD, who is an internationally renowned expert in patient safety, using information technology to improve care, quality-of-care, cost-effectiveness, and outcomes assessment in medical practice. He is a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he co-directs the Program in Clinical Effectiveness. He directs the Center for Patient Safety Research and Practice at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and serves as external program lead for research in the World Health Organization’s Global Alliance for Patient Safety. He has published over 700 peer-reviewed papers. We discussed:  How is patient care changing and impacting medication management, Why doctors ignore alerts of decision support systems, What are healthcare IT systems missing in the UX design,  What do doctors hope to see from IT in the near future, And how should organisations approach patient safety culture improvements? Enjoy the discussion, go to www.facesofdigitalhealth,com This discussion was part of a series of discussions recorded for the movie (OVER)DOSE - How can we prevent medication errors? Opportunity: HRSA Announces New Loan Repayment Program for Behavioral Health Providers. Learn more and apply here: https://bhw.hrsa.gov/funding/apply-loan-repayment/star-lrp

Nurses are the backbone of healthcare. They’re the closest to the patient, they offer support to them and the doctors. Their mission is to make patients feel better and recover as fast as possible. There is a global shortage of nurses and more often than not, nurses are stretched thin. The same as with doctors, mistakes can happen in nursing. You are going to hear from Martina Viduka A practicing nurse and the CEO of Advosense. In this discussion, she presented the nursing perspective on medication management in the hospital setting. This interview was part of the discussions recorded for the movie (OVER)DOSE - How can we prevent medication errors?. Find the link to the movie in the show notes, and see or hear the interviews with other speakers as well. I spoke with 10 experts from six countries across the world to understand why is medication-related patient safety a global problem in which everyone plays a role - the patient and his family, the doctors, the nurses, and the pharmacists.Watch the documentary (OVER)DOSE - How can we prevent medication errors and the panel discussion on Youtube: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/overdose-documentary

With mental health being at the forefront of our attention in 2020, next to COVID, have you ever wondered, how the work of a psychiatrist looks like? Many clinicians fear psychiatric drugs, but Roni Shiloh firmly believes the fear is unnecessary. Roni Shiloh is an MD, specialized in psychiatry. He headed a closed Psychiatric Department, was Chief Psychiatric Officer at a large Israeli HMO as well a senior lecturer in Tel-Aviv University, Israel. He then worked in the Pharmaceutical industry before starting his own startup Seegnal, which offers clinicians decision support in medication prescribing. The system takes into account many of a patient’s variables to be as accurate as possible, and more importantly, for the decision support to not overwhelm the doctor with alerts. Electronic prescribing and medication management are very complex and plagued with errors, which I tried to outline in the documentary OVERDOSE - How can we prevent medication errors. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, find the link in the show notes, or find the version adapted for radio in one of the previous episodes of this podcast. A few of Roni’s statements from this interview are also in the movie. This discussion covers:   How the work of a psychiatrist looks like,  what are the challenges related to medications in psychiatry, why are decision support systems for medication prescribing currently still mostly frustrating for the users? Various research papers show that 90-96% of alerts get ignored. You’ll be able to hear a little bit more about that in one of the upcoming episodes with the pioneering researcher in the field of the impact of IT on medical professionals - Dr. David W. Bates from Harvard. Watch the documentary (OVER)DOSE - How can we prevent medication errors and the panel discussion on Youtube: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/overdose-documentary

This is a panel discussion that happened after the premiere of the documentary (OVER)DOSE - How can we prevent medication errors? which aired on 29 June. You can listen to the adapted audio-only version of the documentary in episode 137.The documentary explores and offers an overview of the current challenges and technical solutions related to medication safety to raise awareness about the need to further improve medication-related patient safety. Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are a leading cause of injury and avoidable harm in health care systems across the world. Globally, the cost associated with medication errors has been estimated at $42 billion USD annually. Errors can occur at different stages of the medication use process.More than 237 million medication errors are made every year in England, the avoidable consequences of which cost the NHS upwards of £98 million and more than 1700 lives every year, indicate national estimates, published online in the journal BMJ Quality & Safety. This panel further highlights issues related to medication safety.Watch the documentary and the panel on Youtube: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/overdose-how-can-we-prevent-medication-errorsSpeakers on the panel: Tjaša Zajc, Author of (OVER)DOSE, Host of Faces of Digital Health Stefan Siekierski, Nurse, Electronic prescribing Project Manager, Better Delivery Manager UK & IE Katrina Azer, Pharmacist, Patient Advocate, Board Member of the Pharmacy Council of New Zealand Robert Johnstone, Board Member of the European Forum for Good Clinical Practice (EFGCP) and International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) Alexander Jankuloski, CEO at Kuwait Hospital Hicham Naim, Global Head Integrated & Personalized Patient Care Program, Digital Advisory Board at Takeda Prof. Yu-Chuan Jack-Li - a researcher of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine and medical informatics, and a practicing dermatologist, the Editor-in-Chief of BMJ Health & Care Informatics

This is a short documentary about medication-related patient safety. The documentary explores and offers an overview of the current challenges and technical solutions related to medication safety to raise awareness about the need to further improve medication-related patient safety. Unsafe medication practices and medication errors are a leading cause of injury and avoidable harm in health care systems across the world. Globally, the cost associated with medication errors has been estimated at $42 billion USD annually. Errors can occur at different stages of the medication use process.More than 237 million medication errors are made every year in England, the avoidable consequences of which cost the NHS upwards of £98 million and more than 1700 lives every year, indicate national estimates, published online in the journal BMJ Quality & Safety. The documentary premiered on 29 June and was accompanied by an expert panel discussion which you can listen to in episode 138.Watch the documentary: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/overdose-how-can-we-prevent-medication-errorsSpeakers in the movie and this episode:David W. Bates, Medical Director of Clinical and Quality Analysis, Information Systems, Patient Safety Expert and Harvard MD (Clinical & Research Perspective)Professor John Horn, PharmD, University of Washington School of Pharmacy, coauthor of “The Top 100 Drug Interactions”; A Guide to Patient Management”Martina Viduka, Practicing Nurse, Co-Founder of AdvosenseDavid Kliff, author and publisher of the Diabetic Investor eNewsletter, former investment advisor, and as a person living with diabetes (Patient Perspective)Duncan Cripps, Electronic Prescribing and Medication Management Lead at University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust (Pharmacist Perspective)Roni Shiloh, CEO of Seegnal, MD degree, specialized in Psychiatry (CDS provider and doctor perspective)Hicham Naim, Global Head Integrated & Personalized Patient Care Program, Digital Advisory Board at Takeda (Pharma Perspective)Marinka Žitnik, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School (Research perspectiveLea Dias, Clinical Pharmacist, Founder and CEO of QuaefactaAbdulelah Alhawsawi, Ex - founding Director-General of the Saudi Patient Safety Center (SPSC)Roi Shternin, Founder of the patient-led Israeli society for Dysautonomia (Patient perspective).

David Kliff is the author and publisher of the Diabetic Investor eNewsletter, former investment advisor and as a person living with diabetes. As the author and publisher of the Diabetic Investor eNewsletter, David Kliff has spent the last 20 years analyzing the ups and downs of the diabetes industry. He closely monitors the diabetes biomed, biotech and device market and shares intel on breaking developments in existing and emerging pharmaceutical and tech companies that operate in that space. In this episode, David talks about improvements in diabetes care and the psychological impacts and challenges contributing to low adherence to medication adherence and other diabetes treatment-related challenges.This discussion was recorded as part of the research for the documentary (OVER)DOSE - How can we prevent medication errors? Join the premiere on 29 June:https://www.linkedin.com/events/over-dose-howcanwepreventmedica6800062280823263232/More details about the event: https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/overdose-how-can-we-prevent-medication-errorsThanks to our Sponsor: Health Resources and Services Administration: Receive up to $250,000 in student loan repayment in exchange for service in a community disproportionately affected by the opioid crisis. Learn more and apply to join STAR LRP - that stands for the Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery Loan Repayment Program. Applications Close on July 22, 2021