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A pleasure to welcome Dr. Eyal Ephrat to intrepidHealthcare! Dr. Ephrat is the CEO and Co-founder of medCPU. From medCPU’s website: “Every patient deserves the best medical care. Like pilots in a cockpit, clinical staff benefit from high-accuracy support systems that help them deliver their expertise in the safest way. medCPU provides these support systems to your hospital.”
Discussion guide with today’s guest: Eyal Ephrat, MD:
Medical error is third biggest cause of death in the US, say experts…
Alarmed with this headline, we invited today’s guest, Dr. Eyal Ephrat to discuss what it means, how we got here, and where we go from here to turn the corner on this rather disturbing trend.
1. First, here is a link to the original story from the BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal).
2. Dr. Ephrat shares his initial thoughtsabout the BMJ article on the high rate and cost of medical errors.
3. 250,000 people die each year in the US due to medical error.
4. Comparing healthcare to aviation, 700 people die each day in the US due to medical error. Yet, in 2013, only 210 people TOTAL died due to a plane crash. Why is there such a gap? [Hint: Aviation’s effective utilization of computers]
5. In healthcare, at the point of care, physicians get almost ZERO help from computers. Why?
6. Human error is inevitable, of course, but many of these medical errors are preventable. Is this truly a problem we can solve?
7. The key to turning this around is the effective implementation of computers at the point of care…
8. Healthcare is the last major industry to truly benefit from advanced computer systems.
9. A discussion of what is required of clinical decision solutions to reduce these errors?
10. Does healthcare have access, and are they using, good data? And if not, why? Computers can only work here if they are seeing the complete picture from the patient’s history.
11. In additional to the data problem, what other technological challenges are required to overcome current problems with inaccurate CDS?
12. Two key factors here: One, providing accurate information. But two, providing that IN REAL TIME. Physicians needs this info almost instantly…
13. Dr. Ephrat shares an example of exactly how this would work, and how through a computer system, you could prevent a serious medical error problem, and potential fatality.
14. Computer alerts/popups/reminders verses a standard checklist?
15. What’s possible in the future? Assuming the successful implementation of a clinical decision solution, can we really turn this problem around?
16. To what extent in numbers can a successful CDS improve care delivery quality and efficiency in the US?
About Eyal Ephrat, MD:
Eyal Ephrat, MD, is an obstetrician and technologist. For over 20 years, his pioneering work in clinical decision support systems has helped hospital clients improve quality of care and clinical outcomes while reducing costs.
As a pioneer in medical intelligence, Eyal founded PeriGen (formerly E&C Medical Intelligence) where he designed, developed and implemented IPROB (Intelligent Patient Records for Obstetrics) – an application specializing in advanced real-time clinical decision support in obstetrics.
His extensive clinical experience and expertise in decision support systems and artificial intelligence led to the development of medCPU’s transformational technology. As CEO, Eyal oversees all clinical and technological innovations – to improve quality patient care through the Company’s multidisciplinary, real-time solution.
He is a former marketing strategist, national political operative, and lobbyist.
Todd has published five books, writes a business + lifestyle column, is a distance runner, and lives in Chicago with his wife Stephanie + family.
