Pharmacists turn to artificial intelligence to the problem of Australians skipping medication

Melbourne-based software company StrongRoom AI is launching a new platform across 1200 pharmacies to lift medication adherence rates.

StrongRoom AI has struck a partnership with 1200 independent pharmacies.

A Melbourne-based software group says it can solve Australia’s $10bn a year problem of people forgetting or refusing to take prescription medication.

StrongRoom AI has partnered with more than 1200 independent pharmacies across Australia via the Platform Alliance Group to use artificial intelligence to lift medication adherence rates.

StrongRoom AI founder and chief executive Max Mito said the platform would use data analytics and facial recognition technology to work with pharmacists and patients to ensure that they were taking their medication as prescribed.

“When looking at adherence there is a whole set of reasons why that might not be the case. It could be healthcare literacy, affordability or convenience,” Mr Mito said.

“Our company’s next-generation AI solution will aggregate and analyse drug data to predict adherence medicine rates within the community to assist pharmacists to identify undeserved patient segments and predict future prescription drug distribution trends.”

Non-adherence of prescription medication is a big drain on Australia’s health budget, costing about $10.4bn a year for just four common health conditions, according to UTS modelling. The Pharmacy Guild of Australia has highlighted cost of medicines as a main driver of noncompliance and has called for the general patient PBS co-payment to be cut from the current $42.50.

StrongRoom AI chief executive Max Mito and director Divesh Sanghvi.

Mr Mito said the medication affordability crisis underlined the need for more efficient platforms and insights to lift compliance.

He said a potential solution was a patient enrolling in a pharma program, in which they receive free medication in return for sharing their data.

“Obviously at the moment affordability of medications is top of mind, especially as the cost of living is going up. A report from the Pharmacy Guild found about 900,000 cannot currently afford their medications or they’ve delayed essential medications as a result of that.

“Another potential solution is matching a patient with a clinical trial. Often pharmaceutical reps go out to them with these opportunities but it’s hard to remember hundreds of these programs. It’s all been managed by paper.

“Healthcare at the moment is very reactive and intuition based so this (an AI platform) allows healthcare providers to be a bit more proactive.”

Some patients struggle with getting a prescription fulfilled at pharmacies – a problem the gig economy has attempted to solve.

Another Melbourne-based start-up, Medmate, partnered with food delivery giant DoorDash to perform 24/7 door-to-door deliveries of pharmaceuticals.

Medmate founder Ganesh Naidoo, who is also a GP, said his platform made “fulfilling prescription medications as simple as ordering a meal from Uber Eats”, processing medications electronically within 60 minutes.

“My mother has diabetes and is on multiple medications. She is in her late 60s now and when I had a look at how she was organising her medicines and was able to actually get them fulfilled from a pharmacy, she really struggled,” Dr Naidoo said when the company launched the DoorDash partnership two years ago.

Meanwhile, Mr Mito is also looking to launch StrongRoom AI’s product across 35,000 aged-care beds and hospitals by the end of the year. He said the administration of medicine in nursing homes had been problematic – even leading to resident deaths – as highlighted in the aged-care royal commission.

“It‘s quite ridiculous what was happening even a year ago, where a majority of providers were using paper to record a lot of the medication administration data. And you can just imagine that there were essentially a lot of mess-ups and misreading the dosages number etc. So you did actually see quite a few fatalities happening as a result of that.”

Mr Mito said StrongRoom AI’s platform would use facial recognition to help aged-care workers identify “who‘s actually standing in front of you, and then exactly what medication to give them”.