What do you mean by Patient-Specific dosing?
Health Robotics believes that while batch preparations of medications (without a corresponding patient-profile prescription
including allergies, weight, medical history, etc.) might be adequate for Total Parenteral Nutrition IV Admixtures or even some
Oral Medications, the same should not be argued for dangerous substances such as chemotherapy agents. The most fatal and
preventable Medical Errors are related to the preparation of dangerous IV admixtures. USP and JCAHO guidelines for accuracy
and sterility, amongst other things, amply justify that a patient’s chemotherapy or pain therapy IV for instance is recommended to
be prepared as accurately as possible, including taking into consideration the patient’s clinical profile before preparation. Health
Robotics exclusively focuses on patient-specific IV dosing and has developed CytoCare to quickly, sefely, and accurately
prepare the IV dose right after prescription.
What are primary considerations for your focus on final containers (IV bags, syringes, etc.) flexibility?
Health Robotics conducted extensive research that showed that the main reason for the lack of adoption of existing automated IV
preparation machines was their use of proprietary and non-standard final containers. Point of Care Clinicians that greatly
influence hospital’s Pharmacy and Therapeutic committees often have extensive patient safety reasons why they select a
particular vendor’s IV bags syringes, or other final IV containers. Other automated solutions have attempted to force hospitals to
switch from their preferred final IV containers to a proprietary and more expensive final IV container solution pushed by the
automation vendor as the only supported container (for instance non-standard Terumo syringes). We do not believe this approach
is in the best clinical or financial interests of either Health Robotics or its customers and have therefore designed maximum
flexibility in CytoCare, not only to support multiple current standard final IV containers but to also be able to adapt to future
changes in the final IV containers market segment without the need to re-design the robot.
Why have you manufactured a solution that can be used outside traditional clean rooms?
Health Robotics believes that one of the constraints of worldwide hospitals’ current throughput issues in the preparation of
dangerous substances IV admixtures (and the key driver for many outsourcing decisions), is the expense associated with
building traditional clean rooms and the logistics associated with transporting the final IV containers from the Hospital’s Central
Pharmacy where clean rooms are typically located to the Ambulatory Patient Care areas. Health Robotics believes that by
designing and bringing to market a Robot that can be placed close to where IV admixtures are administered to patients enables
better patient care and satisfaction, and increases production throughput of IV admixtures. Of course this needs to be balanced
with local regulations about IV Admixtures' preparation.
What was the reason for developing the Chemotherapy application first?
Early in the development of the company and its multiple prototypes over a 6 year R&D cycle, Health Robotics set its objective to
prove that CytoCare could handle the most complex and dangerous IV admixtures, with the understanding that if we could make
a compelling case for Chemotherapy, other Drug Classes would surely follow. In addition, Chemotherapy is the largest Drug
Class expense for Hospitals, and also the fastest-growing Drug Class (both over the past 3 years and forecasted to be for another
10 years), due to aging populations, higher incidences of cancer, and the realization that as cancer survival rates improve,
cancer therapy is increasingly becoming a chronic disease that requires therapeutic treatment over a longer time period.
How does CytoCare relate to the need for Patient-Specific invoicing?
As far as the invoicing issue is concerned, the software allows you to calculate for each single preparation the final cost, based
on the amount of medication actually used. Finally, all information handled by the machine is available at any level of detail. It is
possible for example to retrieve information on every single preparation or extract aggregated data for reporting.
Health Robotics believes that while batch preparations of medications (without a corresponding patient-profile prescription
including allergies, weight, medical history, etc.) might be adequate for Total Parenteral Nutrition IV Admixtures or even some
Oral Medications, the same should not be argued for dangerous substances such as chemotherapy agents. The most fatal and
preventable Medical Errors are related to the preparation of dangerous IV admixtures. USP and JCAHO guidelines for accuracy
and sterility, amongst other things, amply justify that a patient’s chemotherapy or pain therapy IV for instance is recommended to
be prepared as accurately as possible, including taking into consideration the patient’s clinical profile before preparation. Health
Robotics exclusively focuses on patient-specific IV dosing and has developed CytoCare to quickly, sefely, and accurately
prepare the IV dose right after prescription.
What are primary considerations for your focus on final containers (IV bags, syringes, etc.) flexibility?
Health Robotics conducted extensive research that showed that the main reason for the lack of adoption of existing automated IV
preparation machines was their use of proprietary and non-standard final containers. Point of Care Clinicians that greatly
influence hospital’s Pharmacy and Therapeutic committees often have extensive patient safety reasons why they select a
particular vendor’s IV bags syringes, or other final IV containers. Other automated solutions have attempted to force hospitals to
switch from their preferred final IV containers to a proprietary and more expensive final IV container solution pushed by the
automation vendor as the only supported container (for instance non-standard Terumo syringes). We do not believe this approach
is in the best clinical or financial interests of either Health Robotics or its customers and have therefore designed maximum
flexibility in CytoCare, not only to support multiple current standard final IV containers but to also be able to adapt to future
changes in the final IV containers market segment without the need to re-design the robot.
Why have you manufactured a solution that can be used outside traditional clean rooms?
Health Robotics believes that one of the constraints of worldwide hospitals’ current throughput issues in the preparation of
dangerous substances IV admixtures (and the key driver for many outsourcing decisions), is the expense associated with
building traditional clean rooms and the logistics associated with transporting the final IV containers from the Hospital’s Central
Pharmacy where clean rooms are typically located to the Ambulatory Patient Care areas. Health Robotics believes that by
designing and bringing to market a Robot that can be placed close to where IV admixtures are administered to patients enables
better patient care and satisfaction, and increases production throughput of IV admixtures. Of course this needs to be balanced
with local regulations about IV Admixtures' preparation.
What was the reason for developing the Chemotherapy application first?
Early in the development of the company and its multiple prototypes over a 6 year R&D cycle, Health Robotics set its objective to
prove that CytoCare could handle the most complex and dangerous IV admixtures, with the understanding that if we could make
a compelling case for Chemotherapy, other Drug Classes would surely follow. In addition, Chemotherapy is the largest Drug
Class expense for Hospitals, and also the fastest-growing Drug Class (both over the past 3 years and forecasted to be for another
10 years), due to aging populations, higher incidences of cancer, and the realization that as cancer survival rates improve,
cancer therapy is increasingly becoming a chronic disease that requires therapeutic treatment over a longer time period.
How does CytoCare relate to the need for Patient-Specific invoicing?
As far as the invoicing issue is concerned, the software allows you to calculate for each single preparation the final cost, based
on the amount of medication actually used. Finally, all information handled by the machine is available at any level of detail. It is
possible for example to retrieve information on every single preparation or extract aggregated data for reporting.
© 2006 Health Robotics. All rights reserved.
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