Minimizing Human touch – saving lives

Reducing human involvement in drug preparation & administration to prevent errors – ensuring correct dosage and timing

The media is not short of tragic stories about human errors in drug administration, maiming and killing patients all over the world. It could be a dose of medicine which is too low or too high for the patient and the condition. It could be the bad timing, it could be that the patient is given a drug he or she is allergic to and so on.

The media, however, rarely publishes the stories from the other side of the needle – the medical staff administering the drugs. These people are often overworked, tired, hungry, busy, in a hurry and yes…. They are human. They also have their own lives with all the drama, emotions and daily challenges to face, just like any of us.

They too are hurt by those errors. Sometimes physically – they could prick themselves with a needle and insert drugs, often toxic or even radioactive, into their body; and if their mistake costs someone their life – they have to live with the consequences.

In fact, drug-related medical errors are estimated to cause 7,000 deaths per year in the USA alone, also relating in damage to hospital’s reputation and potential litigations.

It was these stories that inspired us to come up with our robotic solution. We figured that only by making technology work for us and minimizing the human touch in the process of preparing and administering the drugs, it would allow us to reduce and even prevent errors, thus protecting the lives of both patients and medical staff.

RescueDose is an automated and computerized system that can take a syringe, fill it up with an accurate dose of whatever substance is needed, seal it (with the needle and cap), insert it into a special metal protective tube and close the tube. All that’s left for the medical technician is then to print out the correct label – which is already waiting on the computer (so no typing and errors there), stick it on the tube and send the tube to the ward.

The nurses can then open the tube, which is clearly and accurately labeled and administer the drug which has already been prepared.

The less people touch the syringes, the less people fill them up, seal them and pack them and the less people have to type patient information onto the labels – the less chances for human errors.

This is RescueDose – The right dose at the right time, right on the spot.