Medication Administration and Patient Care Management Software (Qrex)
Student: Quynh Nguyen, 2020-2021
Sponsor: DataLogic Software, Inc., Harlingen, Texas
“This is America’s other drug problem—polypharmacy,” asserted Dr. Maristela Garcia, director of the inpatient geriatric unit at UCLA Medical Center. “And the problem is huge.” Polypharmacy is the simultaneous consumption of more medications than a patient actually needs, which can be a combination of prescription drugs, over-the-counter medicines, and dietary or herbal supplements. According to the National Council on Patient Information and Education, senior patients account for 34 percent of prescribed medications in the United States. Among them, more than 40 percent regularly consume 5 or more prescription drugs, and nearly 20 percent consume more than 10 medications. The absence of consistent online data resources and the lack of communication among different doctors and specialists about elderly patients’ prescribed medications and scheduled doses can potentially lead to polypharmacy, resulting in negative and inefficient outcomes. I am grateful to be able to work with my Capstone sponsor, DataLogic Software, Inc. (DataLogic), for the upcoming academic year to tackle this issue and to streamline the medication management process as well as to protect patients from prescription complications or unnecessary medications. I will be working with DataLogic to research, plan, build, and deploy a cloud-based software solution that will serve as an online communication bridge between the patients with the services offered by doctors and pharmacies.