Swedish company Quality Pharma is on a mission to bring innovative technology to global healthcare by solving a $1T problem (OECD), the global direct & indirect cost of Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) resulting from inappropriate drug use and medication error. ADRs are the 4th largest cause of mortality in the US. It is critical for medical professionals to have more support to identify drug conflicts. Furthermore governments, health systems and providers have a duty to protect patients and the public from harm.
Quality Pharma has developed the QS software (Quantum Satis, Latin for “sufficient quantity”) a powerful and innovative AI platform to identify patterns and correlations in drug treatment, using regional, national, and international drug data sources. It combines health care and self-reported patient data to provide a personalised indication of potential cause for concern.
We live in an aging world where more people are taking multiple medicines every day helping to improve health and quality of life. This is undoubtedly advantageous for many, but for others their prescribed medicines can have negative impacts, causing illness, harm and in extreme cases even death.
The QS software scans a database of over 9,000 medicines, providing medical professionals with the relevant information showing the potential risks of, and interactions between, different prescribed medicines. The patient also provides behavioural and symptomatic information to help the medical professional decide. The medical professional always makes the final decision after reviewing the results of the QS report and the information the patient provides.
To date Quality Pharma has primarily operated in its home country of Sweden, in over two hundred wards caring for elderly people. This resulted in a significant improvement of drug use already in the first year, with inappropriate drug use falling by approx. 10% across this group. In 2019 the business won the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences’ Award for research with prominent potential for business in the field of digitisation. The company is currently expanding internationally with a key partner in Australia and targeting the UK later this year.
The QS platform has the potential to be a transformational tool in global healthcare for care homes, hospitals, pharmacies and clinics, by helping deliver safer and more effective drug prescriptions resulting in lower costs and better patient outcomes. In addition, insurance companies will benefit from lower claims, as they avoid the cost of dealing with the cost of adverse drug reactions.
Please read more at https://qualitypharma.ai/. Professor Johan Fastbom is the founder of Quality Pharma. He is a medical doctor and professor in geriatric pharmacology at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. His primary objective has always been to improve patient care and safety when using medicines.