Abacus Group to build medication safety application

The Abacus Group of Cranston was recently awarded an Agency for Healthcare Research Quality (AHRQ) contract to build “MyMedicationAdvisor.com,” an interactive Web-based application to improve the safety and effective use of prescription medication by patients, particularly the elderly.



“Prescription writing is expected to grow by 33 percent between 2000 and 2004,” said Dr. Michael J. Follick, president and CEO of Abaus. “Unfortunately, growth is medication errors due to either improper prescriptions or improper use by patients is also rising dramatically and compromises patient safety and treatment effectiveness.”



Abacus works to provide research, development and consulting services to improve the quality of health care systems.



The MyMedicationAdvisor.com application will be a source of information about medications, contain tools to enhance adherence and include a coashing model to improve patient/provider communication skills.



The company cited a statistic that 7,000 people die annually from medication errors, and it has been estimated that between three and 12 percent of hospital admissions are the direct result of medication errors or adverse drug reactions.