Medication error kills between 7000 to 9000^* patients in US hospitals every year (approximately one patient per hour). In 2017, US healthcare safety institute ECRI, declared intravenous medication errors to be the number one threat to patient safety in the USA.

^*Institute of Medicine 2000, 2006. AHRQ Report 2002, 2008

Medication error is estimated to cost NZ$158m* per annum in New Zealand and up to US$5.6B^** in the United States. The US Network for Health Innovation (NEHI) estimates medication error costs being as high as US$21B.

^*Health Quality and Safety Commission NZ

^**Institute of Medicine 2000, 2006. AHRQ Report 2002, 2008

With immense power to unleash improvements in cost, quality, and access, AI is exploding in popularity. Growth in the AI health market is expected to reach $6.6B by 2021—that’s a compound annual growth rate of 40%.^* AI applications can potentially create $150B in annual savings for the United States healthcare economy by 2026.

Veriphi’s cloud-based data service uses machine learning algorithms and AI to combine drug and patient information from a network of devices spread across the health system to improve health outcomes.

^*Accenture AI Report 2017

Shortages of skilled staff are a factor in medication error. Studies show that some factors such as medication miscalculations, lack of knowledge, and proficiency, as well as neglecting the hospital's medication protocol due to lack of time, extreme tiredness, inadequate work experience, and inappropriate work environment may all be related to the medication errors made by nurses.* Numerous other studies indicate increasing error rates from the pharmacy^** to the patient with higher workloads.

^*Carlton G, Blegen MA. Medication-related errors: A literature review of incidence and antecedents. Annu Rev Nurs Res. 2006;24:19–38

^**Workload of pharmacists and the performance of pharmacy services Shih-Chieh Shao, Yuk-Ying Chan, Swu-Jane Lin, Chung-Yi Li, Yea-Huei Kao Yang, Yi-Hua Chen, Hui-Yu Chen, Edward Chia-Cheng Lai; Published: April 21, 2020

The crippling cost of healthcare has become a major burden on most developed economies. US healthcare costs over the past 60 years have gone from 5% to 18% of US GDP at US$3.5 trillion.

By reducing patient harm, Veriphi reduces the significant cost of medication error and can enable new cost-effective models of patient treatment outside of the traditional hospital environment.

An estimated 400,000^* US patients are injured every year from medication error. The vast majority of these errors go unreported. A New Zealand study identified that between 1% to 15% of medication errors were reported with the vast majority of incidents still missed.^**

^*Institute of Medicine 2000, 2006. AHRQ Report 2002, 2008

^**Merry and Webster 2008 (JNZMA)

Risk of harm increases with an increase in the number of medications taken due to drug interaction (polypharmacy) or error, particularly for the elderly. Polypharmacy has been cited as a risk factor contributing to increased morbidity and mortality.^* Other studies have shown that the risk of error increases with a rise in the number of medications.^**

^*Sears K, Scobie A, MacKinnon NJ. Patient-related risk factors for self-reported medication errors in hospital and community settings in 8 countries. Can Pharm J (Ott). 2012;145:88-93.

^**Hanlon JT, Schmader KE, Koronkowski MJ, et al. Adverse drug events in high risk older outpatients. J Am Geriatr Soc. 1997;45:945-948)

Errors from high impact drugs pose serious risks to patients, particularly in cancer treatment. Notably, the fast-growing use of volatile short shelf life immunotherapy drugs poses unique challenges for safe and effective drug delivery.

The US$84B cancer immunotherapy market is growing at 14% per annum and is expected to reach US$242.86B by 2026.^*

^*Globe Newswire 2019