Features & Benefits

While the most important benefit of TabSafe is the promise of prolonged and greater independence for senior citizens, there are many other practical and economic benefits it creates for all of us involved in caring for the health of senior citizens.

Caregiver and extended family - Provides comfort and assurance that your loved one is taking his or her medication properly, and alerts you when there is a deviation. TabSafe improves care and reduces costs and liability by enabling healthcare professionals to be more efficient. In a home care environment, TabSafe can prevent or delay transfer of the person to institutional care.

Physician - Creates a control mechanism to monitor all medications taken by the patient, tracks usage amount and frequency, helps to forsee adverse reactions from different medicine combinations, and provides valuable patient information. Compliance accuracy will improve diagnosis and wellness, while reducing recovery time and cost.

Institutional Care Facilities - Reduces costs, improves the efficiency of the caregivers, generates an automated Medication Administration Record (MAR), and enhances competitive advantage. Creates a way to differentiate services by providing a program that can help control or reduce the expense of medication.

Pharmaceutical Retailers, Institutional Pharmacies (PBM's) and Distributors - Alerts the supplier when a refill is required, and builds a long-term customer relationship. Reduces costs, increases efficiency, opens new markets, and reduces liability. Improves the quality of the pharmacy consulting function, and enhances interaction and utilization checks.

The Issue of Compliance

You may have seen these dramatic statistics already, but they merit repeating:

• In the U.S., over 30% of all prescription medication is taken incorrectly, causing 125,000 deaths each year.
• Among the elderly, the incorrect taking of medication accounts for 40% of all hospital admissions.
• Over 23% of all new resident admissions to assisted living, independent care, nursing home and skilled nursing facilities are a direct result of not being able to take medication properly.

In addition, there is the even more serious case of recent breakthrough drugs that have been developed which have "life or death" consequences for non-compliance. They include drugs to treat recovery from organ transplants, HIV, medication to control strokes and other chronic conditions, and seizure avoidance medication.

Currently, compliance in these areas is less than 85%. Compliance for simple antibiotics is only 33%. The TabSafe medication management system will provide a significant compliance improvement in these areas of concern, improve healthcare quality, reduce cost of stall already in short supply, and improve user independence

More Safeguards Mean Less Liability

We cannot get around the fact that liability is a major issue in the healthcare industry, and a major cost The many compliance safeguards built into TabSafe offer the potential to not only improve healthcare, but also reduce liability.

• The ability to foresee adverse drug events.
• Detection of drug interaction problems.
• Reduction in medication mixing errors.
• Locked individual cabinets.

• Reminder alerts.
• Caregiver calls.
• Individual delivery.
• Digital records for all activity and complete drug interaction and utilization check.
• Expired prescription detection.
• Remote computer access by the physician to check compliance and change or discontinue medications.
• Dual locking devices to protect children and the disabled.

These many safeguards add up to significantly reduced liability, and the possibility or significant savings for liability insurance.

The Complex Issue of Independence

Independence for senior citizens is not only a serious issue, but a complex one, as well.

One of the more subtle, yet significant, benefits of TabSafe is that it allows for varying levels of independence of the patient, up to total dependence.

Through set-up options, certain features of TabSafe can be enabled to allow the caregiver to perform operation functions, as well as track all transactions for risk management benefit. As the person's acuity changes, these functions can be easily turned off and on.

A Natural Transition With TabSafe

Assisted living communities use a variety of medication delivery systems, and many residents can be trusted to independently take care of their own medication. In these situations the staff checks periodically to assure compliance. As the residents require more care through the aging process, a sensitive decision point arises when the resident becomes more dependent on the staff for administering medication.

TabSafe allows for a natural transition without stress to the resident, staff or the extended family, and provides a record of occurrences to substantiate the need for a change in the care for the resident.

In the period when the resident is able to use TabSafe independently, savings can be realized in giving staff more time for administrative tasks and other caregiver duties.

For a printer friendly brochure, click here.