Our Guest: Michael LaFauci, Chief Executive Officer at MIDAS Healthcare Solutions
Welcome to today’s episode of Drug Diversion Insights, where we dive into the latest innovations transforming the healthcare industry. In this episode I am joined by a visionary in the field of medication security —Michael LaFauci, the Founder and CEO of MIDAS Healthcare Solutions. In this episode, we’ll be discussing MIDAS Healthcare’s flagship product, the MIDAS View, a groundbreaking solution designed to address one of the most pressing challenges in healthcare today: the management of controlled substance waste and the mitigation of drug diversion. The MIDAS View system is not just about disposing of excess medication—it’s about doing so in a way that ensures safety, accountability, and compliance, reducing the risk of diversion, which has become a critical issue in the healthcare sector. We’ll explore how MIDAS View leverages advanced technology like Anytime Witness™ and cutting-edge 360º high-definition cameras to provide real-time video documentation and verification of medication disposal. This innovation is setting new standards for transparency and security, making it easier for healthcare facilities to manage waste responsibly and in compliance with regulatory standards. Michael will also share the journey behind the creation of MIDAS Healthcare Solutions, how his experience as a hospital pharmacy assistant director fueled his passion for addressing these critical gaps, and what the future holds for the company as they prepare for broader deployment of their solutions. So, whether you’re a healthcare professional, an administrator, or just someone interested in the future of medical technology, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss. Let’s get started! Thanks to our sponsor, MIDAS Healthcare Solutions Learn more about V.I.E.W. Waste and Return System: https://midashs.com/products/
Transcript:
Terri
Welcome back, listeners. Today on drug diversion Insights, we have Michael Lafauci, the founder and CEO of Midas Healthcare Solutions. Welcome, Mike.
Michael
Thank you, Terri. Nice to be here.
Terri
Very nice to have you. Before we talk about Midas and the product that you have, tell us a little bit about your background.
Michael
So my background, it’s kind of unusual, right, as a pharmacist, really. Back in the late eighties, I graduated, went into hospital and retail and then corporate later on in my life, but changed my career while waiting online for a hot dog in a soda at a stadium and started to realize that I can order remotely from my seat. So I said, I want to do something about this. And this was back in the late nineties, right? So everybody thought I was crazy, leaving my career developing software to order remotely from your seats for concessions and arenas successfully exited that and decided, you know what? I can build my own company. So at that point, after I exited, that came across an opportunity where I was building a medical device to eliminate fetal lacerations around a baby.
Michael
It was the most common surgery, most common injury. Successfully exited that and started to realize I had a track record, right, that I can do what I wanted to do, and started to do things that were really interesting and came about looking at fentanyl patches when somebody told me that they have all this excess medications, and it was a major risk in the industry for diversion. So I started to look at medications first, the patches per se. This company was started on a lint roller, right? So full circle for me, I’m back in my industry from building companies outside of my industry, back as utilizing my pharmacy experience as an assistant director years and years ago, kind of coming right back into the whole realm of what happens in pharmacy, right?
Michael
What is going on with all this excess medications, not just fentanyl patches, but it was tablets, it was liquids, it was all types of medications. And how do we lose control of the chain of custody? So that was the beginning of Midas, and at that point, I made some key initial phone calls, and before you knew it, some of my partners, we have a company now that’s really direction just based on the feedback. So that’s where. That’s my background.
Terri
Wow, interesting. So an app for ordering food at the ballgame.
Michael
That’s right.
Terri
I think that is one of the more interesting roundabout circles that I’ve heard.
Michael
You know, what happens? And you started to realize because why, as a pharmacist, right, Terri, you know, you’re not. We went to school for a certain amount of training, right? But our training was so significant because it really made us different. We looked at all the challenges, we looked at all the little things that are important inside that industry. And we’re really perfectionist as were trained.
Terri
Right.
Michael
And so how do we bring perfectionism back into the diversion world?
Terri
Right.
Michael
So I was doing it in other companies, how to get perfection around that and how to successfully exit those. But I’m happy to be back here in full circle, like I said before, and to make a difference and disrupt the industry. And we’re doing that because what we tend to do in healthcare especially is we ignore the obvious.
Terri
Right.
Michael
We take them, that’s the norm and we should be okay with it.
Terri
Right.
Michael
We’ve done it. As an assistant director, I did it for how many years? It’s time that were creative. We can initiate change and disrupt this market and actually protect our patients and our healthcare givers.
Terri
Yeah, that’s true. I mean, you’re right, we are perfectionists. But I think a lot of us sometimes are very dialed in and focused. We’re not necessarily visionaries. And so, yeah, we don’t think about other alternatives and myself included. I mean, I’m, you know, I’m more, this is, you know, I need a visionary next to me to give me suggestions.
Michael
You have it.
Terri
We all have it.
Michael
And we have to just tap into it. And I love coaching people to do it.
Terri
Right.
Michael
So we make a big difference for everybody.
Terri
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Tell us about your product. Midas View.
Michael
So, Midas View, I mean, if you don’t know about us already, I mean, we’re a really unique product addressing the biggest black hole in the industry.
Terri
Right.
Michael
So the biggest black hole in the industry is on the wasting side. We’ve taken care of all the automated dispensing that goes on in the industry. How many years ago when I was implementing those technologies. But we forgot really, about what happens on the wayside. There’s no real proof around the disposal process.
Terri
Right.
Michael
And so we’re looking at it from that perspective. So now we can provide proof around the disposal process. We can provide proof around what’s required around a witness to assure that witness is there.
Terri
Right.
Michael
No flybys anymore. We can have, with the built in artificial intelligence and the machine learning that we have built into the system, we’re able to see with our four k, three hundred sixty cameras to look at this high resolution of what’s going on during the process. So we’re really giving a platform of confidence back to both pharmacy nursing and administration of what’s going on during this process.
Terri
And when you say we can view it, all that is through the cameras. That is what you’re talking about, right?
Michael
That’s right. It’s through the cameras. Those cameras are part of integrated into our systems with two portholes that where you are disposing of the cameras, for one, you can always look at them then or now or later on at any point. When you decide to, you’re looking at an opportunity to. If you don’t have a witness nearby, you can always review it later. So proceed going forward.
Terri
Right.
Michael
Don’t get challenged by looking for somebody during that workforce challenge for nurses when they have to go physically find somebody and are they really staying? But now you can look at it, and when you are reviewing it, you’re able to maneuver those cameras, post the actual view, right. You can look at it in 360, you can look at things like, did they actually put it in the actual port where it belongs? Hazardous versus non hazardous. First time you’re guided environmentally what goes where. We always told what drugs go where, but you can’t really remember everything.
Michael
So all these little facets of what makes it everything when you bring it all together, how do we have real proof around keeping us safe, around the excess that’s out there so that we know we’re assuring that it’s put into the right area and keeping the area safe around them, especially with the nurses, if they’re not tempted and they know there’s a reason that they should be doing this in the right way and following the procedure.
Terri
Right. Is it a separate piece of equipment? Does it integrate with the automated dispensing machine? How does that work?
Michael
Yeah. So it’s a separate piece of equipment. It almost looks like a regular medical cartae with two ports and two wasting containers on the bottom. It integrates with all the different data points that we need through the EHR, through the Adm. So we’re looking at things like HL seven, which is for the first time that people aren’t really tapping into. We’re looking at messages around ADT on the admitting side and what’s been given on the administration side. For the first time, we’re going to be able, and we are doing it now, where you’re able to reconcile the medication wasting process fully.
Terri
Right.
Michael
So what does that mean? We’re going to address all the outliers, the typical outliers that are out there now around dispensers from pharmacy dispensers from the narcotic cabinet. What goes on around those different pieces. How about things like when you have different users, one might pull a medication, one might waste it. Those are two different users. How about time variabilities? How about location?
Terri
Right.
Michael
You might pull it in the OR, and then it’s getting wasted, maybe in the recovery room. All those different points which have never been able to, been fully recognized and then reconciled, were able to address them.
Terri
Right.
Michael
And then not only address them, but really at the time, being able to give you some real strong data around it.
Terri
Okay, so is that, does it alert you if something is missing? Does it tell you if there’s been a handoff? I mean, what are the kinds of information that you can get from it? Because there’s practice and then there’s diversion.
Terri
Right.
Michael
Practice errors versus really diversion. And then how do you siphon those out?
Terri
Right.
Michael
Yeah. And that’s a great question. So, yeah, it does all the above, what you just said. So we’re going to take and tag certain data points that may be questionable.
Terri
Right.
Michael
That could be things like you might have had a practice error. Let’s look at it, but let’s zero in. What better way to not only zero in now, not looking at a one dimensional data that you’re getting now, but multidimensional. So what does that mean? So that means now you’re able to go back in, look at the cameras, look at your video on demand whenever you want to look at it and actually confirm what happened. So what does that do? That brings down your investigational time way down.
Terri
Right.
Michael
You don’t need to guess. You don’t need to bring people in and understand if it was really a practice error versus was it really a diversion event?
Terri
Yeah. How, I was just thinking, you know, in some institutions that have the surveillance software and so they can see everything that’s happening, but then there’s some unaccounted for, and then they go back and they ask the nurse, what’d you do with it? Just so they can try to get it accounted for from a compliance perspective. Right. And the nurse says, oh, I wasted it, but I forgot to do it in the machine. If they had performed that waste, let’s just say that the Midas view is in the med room. If they had performed it in the med room, could you use it for that, to even see if they were in the med room?
Michael
You can.
Terri
You can.
Michael
Okay.
Terri
So it’s always going, not just when there’s.
Michael
Well, it’s not. It’s going by transactional.
Terri
Right.
Michael
It’s a transactional link so you can look when they said they did wasted it so it would come up and I’ll transact, see if they had a wasting event. And then when you go to review that video, that wasting event would be linked to that transaction.
Terri
Right.
Michael
So you’re not searching and screaming through cameras streaming through camera work.
Terri
Right.
Michael
It’s really direct, it’s focused, it’s lasered in. It’s not like your regular camera that’s in that med room. And the fact that it has AI built into it, Terri, you’re going to be able to tell even if that was in time, it’s going to start to recognize tablets, liquids, sizes, colors, you know, did somebody put something in their pocket? Did somebody move out of the zone? Let’s call them boundaries.
Terri
Right.
Michael
Are they moving out of those boundaries during the wasting process? And if there was a witness with them.
Terri
Right.
Michael
On camera as well, did they stay, did they go out of the boundaries? What did that person do? For the first time ever, we’re able to see. Seeing is a gift.
Terri
Right?
Terri
Right. Yeah. Well, certainly what you just said about the witness, if a. If a facility still has the policy that you must have a witness, which, you know, they do, and they may not feel comfortable letting that go at the very beginning, you could certainly use the product to see if their witness is really witnessing.
Michael
That’s exactly it. And you know, and you know, the time that we. We guess. Right, because it is the dark side.
Terri
Right.
Michael
And, you know, I call the med surg areas. It’s. It’s, you know, it’s the dark hole, the black hole. And I call the or sometimes it’s really incredibly challenged.
Terri
Right.
Michael
Is it the really the wild west? And it’s not. It’s just the fast pace. And it’s not because some of these healthcare workers are bad people. It’s because they’re challenged. They forget, you know, it’s not easy what they’re doing, you know, so we have to give them full confidence. We’re here to support them during this process and we’re here to protect them.
Terri
Right.
Terri
Yeah, you’ve mentioned the or a couple of times. So does your product work the same differently? Is it suitable for a procedural area in the OR?
Michael
Yes. So we have. We have three different types of products. One is for the med surg, like we just discussing.
Terri
Right, for the.
Michael
The regular floors. And then we have a mini.
Terri
Right, that.
Michael
A Midas mini that fits those tight medication rooms so it’s smaller size, providing the same platform.
Terri
Right.
Michael
To work with. You know, when you. That’s another thing.
Terri
Right.
Michael
We’re challenged with, where do you prep?
Terri
Right.
Michael
People don’t know where to prep. They really shouldn’t be prepping on those adms. But do you want to prep in an area that’s really conducive to what you’re doing right now? The pro card, the Met, you know, the Midas pro is meant for the operating room, recovery room, any of those procedure areas that were just discussing. And it’s meant for those areas because the way it’s built to meet the challenges of those areas. So what do I mean by that? The software, number one, is meant to have multi dose wasting during the OR because you’re gonna have four or five drugs at a time. They can build their own patient hot list for the day of all the procedures that they’re doing. So it makes it easier from a selection point of view.
Michael
They’re able to build their list of, let’s say, commonly used drugs during that typical procedure that they always have. So they’re not searching through the formulary. It’s their pre built list that they can build months before as anesthesiologist, whoever’s using the system. And then when they go to waste, it’s like a menu. I want it to be as fast as a menu item.
Terri
Right.
Michael
So that you’re choosing. Right back to my old piece of my experience, start choosing these things. Make it easy.
Terri
Right.
Michael
So that they feel and fast and confident.
Terri
Right.
Michael
So when they go through this process and after they make each selection, they’re able to move through that process. Each one of those wasting events for each drug would be a separate video. So it’s logged into the electronic file. So when anybody wants to do a review of these, it’s always there to look at as separate video events, tracking the different wasting events.
Terri
Okay. And they don’t need to then log on to the automated dispensing machine in addition.
Michael
No, this is a separate. This is. You’re turning that off totally, right. Or not doing it at all there anymore. It’s all on this system. This is your final truth. Final piece of truth for. For the wasting process. The wasting process on those adms is not efficient. They did all what they had to do on making it real specific around dispensing, and they did a great job on that. They kind of let go of that piece.
Terri
Right.
Michael
They kind of were taking it for granted. It’s the open gap, right. We have to address all these open gaps and make sure that we fill them in for the administration so they feel confident.
Terri
Okay. So nurses, physicians, anybody, you start out at the ADM, you do your dispensing and then if you have integrated waste or if you need to come back to waste, then you do that on the midas completely separate and you forget.
Michael
The ADM. That’s exactly. And it will all reconcile at the end. So even if you have diversion software, it’s going to reconcile first with the ADM’s if it was dispensed from there. But direct dispensers from pharmacy where it really all the system talking to the EMR as well. Full triangulate all the data so that you have a way of reconciling the data so that you zero out at the end.
Terri
Right.
Michael
So you want to make sure. And then any of those triggers, like if we have a trigger on our side that we’re looking at, how about this? If we start to see people who don’t waste at all, right, versus people who do waste, why isn’t somebody not wasting, right. We can send that trigger to maybe onto their software. Right, to their diverse software. Let’s look at them or alert on our reports for them to look at those individuals. Or how about, let’s say look at the other software that’s out there like Invistix, you know, whoever you want to look at, protanis, any of those systems can point to us. If they have any questionable, you know, people that they want to look at, they can send alerts to us. And then what happens there? We can do an r.
Michael
We have a feature called RX intercept. So what does that mean? So that means at any point they can go in, right, and intercept that actual waste the next time they go to waste.
Terri
Right.
Michael
Never been done in the industry before. And that will be collected on video at that cart from a chain of custody and pharmacy will be alerted when it has been collected. And they’re going to be able now to come back and take those Rx intercepts, bring them down to central pharmacy, right. And then look at them and say, all right, is this really what they were supposed to be wasting? They’ll never know when they’re going to get intercepted. So you can set those up, you know, accordingly. You can say, you know what, I want to intercept just this floor with these nurses, or I want to just intercept with this, maybe just this one nurse.
Terri
You’re going to make it random.
Michael
Random or targeted.
Terri
Right.
Michael
You know, and it could be any way you want it. You can drive this nursing and pharmacy, this is where they kind of lock arms.
Terri
Right.
Michael
With our system, they can drive this as best as the way they want to drive it and make sure it’s effective for them.
Terri
And can the person who’s driving it from the diversion, whatever program, whoever you sit under, can they do it fairly real time where they can. I am now concerned about, you know, Rn Smith and she’s just removed something. And so then log on to Midas and say the next time she comes in.
Michael
That’s exactly it. Exactly it. So the alibi system is our control system.
Terri
Right.
Michael
To look at what’s going on from an administration point of view. So pharmacy. And then if you want to have nursing have access to that too, as well, they would be able to go in just like you just said and say, you know what, I have some concerns. I want to go in. And maybe not every time that next time that nurse wastes, maybe every third time. So they can’t even say to themselves when is it going to happen?
Terri
Right.
Michael
And you should be able to, maybe you want to look at even buddy wasting, maybe when these two people waste together, you want to look at it, you know, and they’ll never know. But the good thing is now that you’ll know because what really matters now is you have the video that goes along with it and with that four k, three hundred sixty camera and that AI built into it. It’s pretty cool how that brings it all together.
Terri
Yeah. Video is important. I mean, we use it to rule in, but also rule out, I mean, a lot of questions that you’re like, oh, they said this, but you don’t believe anybody. And so, yeah, you can see it.
Michael
In fact, the reason why it was named Alibi, the part of our system, because when we did our insights, we did it with nurses, we did it with pharmacists, we did it with anesthesiologists. They named it the alibi system because they think that finally they do have the alibi.
Terri
Right.
Michael
Check who get this. Which was never, that was never there for them, Terri.
Terri
Right.
Michael
We gotta, we have to, you know, they need support. We gotta support them.
Terri
Yeah, that’s true. And then that helps rule out the, yeah, I just got busy and I just forgot which, I mean, we’d like it to not happen. We’d like 100% accountability.
Michael
But I.
Terri
Reality is reality. So it does happen occasionally. Yeah.
Michael
It’s about enhancing detection and protection.
Terri
Right.
Terri
Right. Okay. Yeah. So your product is fairly new is the intention, I mean the technology in general might be there, the intention to be able to do this with all of the software surveillance companies out there?
Michael
Absolutely. Absolutely. Because the data interface that we’re feeding into is kind of what they’re feeding into anyway. So all the way the state of exchange is happening is to make sure that we’re an agnostic, number one.
Terri
Right.
Michael
But in a way that makes us fully robust on the reconciliation part of it. So I want to make those software companies, the diversion software companies feel confident. I want my directors of pharmacy, my chief pharmacy officers to feel confident. I want administration to feel confident that we’re going to support them. They should not be holding this question in their head. What’s going on my wasting site? Right. 70% of all the waste discrepancies that go on is on the wayside. We have to take care of that. And more importantly, Terri, look what goes on in pharmacy.
Terri
Right?
Terri
Yeah, I was going to ask you about pharmacy. Yeah.
Michael
So when I was telling you before about Rx intercept. And they intercept it.
Terri
Right.
Michael
You got to format, you know, the chain of custody, follow it for a second up on the floors. It gets collected by pharmacy, gets all scanned. All of this is all on camera. So the chain of custody is followed all the way through back pharmacy. Everything have everything. When it gets down to pharmacy, they got to open it, they got to look at the videos to make sure everything was put into these bags that they just collected.
Terri
Right.
Michael
But final chain of destruction is in central pharmacy. So pharmacy, just like the OR and those other areas would have a pro system like I described to you before, because they got to handle everything else.
Terri
Right.
Michael
So, and the final destruction of that RX intercept, we now know it’s been proven. We looked at it.
Terri
Right.
Michael
And now we can destroy it all on camera. So fully through.
Terri
Right.
Michael
Now, if there’s a question, we would mark it on our software on camera for further review by the director of pharmacy, and then they would have to come look at what they’re looking at. If that needs more testing, does it not need maybe a test, whatever it is? But at least there’s a chain of custody and we’re following it through the process. But pharmacy. Go ahead.
Terri
No, go ahead. Finish.
Michael
But pharmacy is also challenged by what else, right. You have things like batch wasting, compounding, overfills, patient owned meds.
Terri
Right.
Michael
How do you destroy any of the stuff? Exactly.
Terri
Right.
Michael
Let’s get, let’s. Let’s get rid of all the excess that does not need to be there.
Terri
Right.
Michael
But let’s provide some information around it. There’s no intelligence here. Minus is providing that intelligence around that process that it’s never been done before. So the batch wasting, think of it for a second. We’re going to be able to get rid of batch wasting IV’s compounding. Anything you’re doing in that iv room. We have logs and paperwork right now.
Terri
Right.
Michael
What would it be like now to really have an electronic record and proof that we got rid of it? We look outside all the time, out of our departments.
Terri
Right.
Michael
We got to start looking inside, too.
Terri
Right? Yeah. I want to ask you about in the compounding room, the IV compounding room. But something you said made me think, do you, could you use it for, you said patient owned meds, so patient, if it’s. Well, this is a whole other topic. Right. Storing it in pharmacy, which is not appropriate, but a lot of people do. It’s not wasting at this point, but it is that double count and sealing and accountability, that would mostly just be the count. Can you.
Michael
Yep. So it’s.
Terri
It’s in.
Michael
It’s in the software being prepared right now.
Terri
Right.
Michael
So we’re just finalizing that piece.
Terri
Right.
Michael
So how does that look? How does it label or even maybe produce a label around that? But you should have accountability around that. We should have a chain of custody around that. And why not, right. We’re going to be doing things like expired and recall meds, right, from central Pharmacy. So, you know, when you go up to the floors and you pull those expired meds out of those adms, that could be a two, three, four, maybe a week’s worth of work. Some of the stuff we’re doing around that, what you just said, it’s really keen, is going to be having that chain of custody around that. Like, how do you prepare before you go up to those floors and collect?
Terri
Right.
Michael
That’s key. You want to make that process very easy. And then when you do collect, how do you bring it back down and show that it’s been collected and have a chain of custody around it? Not that you’re destroying it right there, but there’s camera and giving you accountability around the chain of custody. And then if you choose to destroy, like, let’s just say, patient owned meds.
Terri
Right.
Michael
Because some of the stuff I just described to you might go back to the Inmars of the world, which we’ll talk about that in a second. But, like, think about patient home meds. There are hospitals out there that do accept them. They do bring them in. They actually get left behind.
Terri
Right.
Michael
We store those.
Terri
Right.
Michael
Well, I would have meds for six to eight months at a time in big rooms. It was my biggest diversion. Scare, you know, worry. It’s who’s really watching those.
Terri
Right.
Michael
How do you get into those bags? How do you know, get them out? So what happened is you have, what we’re doing is you’re going to be able to do, on camera, show what you’re working with, even patient, you know, information. Even if they left the hospital now, it’s all left behind. Destroy it all on camera, counted and destroyed, have a record around it. It’s another form of information that the DEA doesn’t have. It’s another form of information that you as an administrator can show that you’re keeping a chain of custody that we don’t have.
Terri
Okay. Lots of good stuff on your roadmap for sure.
Michael
And it’s coming.
Terri
Yeah. Compounding room, iv compounding room. Do you have something now that works that or is that on the roadmap?
Michael
That’s on the roadmap, but literally they’re in the process now coding just for all that software. So, yes, there’s ways to look at this. We’ll talk about at another time. But really, like, how do you start to segregate these out? What’s patient related, what’s not patient related yet? So you have to segregate those out from a data point of view. And then how does that tie into the narcotic bolt? If you’re taking things that are controlled substance like morphine drips, if you’re making those, you know, how do you start to reconcile your narcotic vault versus what you pull what’s left over and who was the preparer in the compound.
Terri
Yeah. And the overfill waste.
Michael
That’s right.
Terri
That you have. Yeah.
Michael
There’s no way to look at right now.
Terri
Yeah. All right. Wow. You got a lot of stuff I wanted to ask you about. So from my understanding of your product, because it’s on camera, if the. I always feel bad picking on nurses, but if the nurse isn’t going to use the entire syringe. Right. And so they do an integrated waste. Waste at the time of removal, and all of that is just right there, and it’s all captured.
Michael
And I.
Terri
And it’s great. But there are hospitals that don’t enforce or have a policy that they need to do integrated waste, and they may leave the room with the entire syringe, and then they come back and go through the motions. What do you say to that? Because I think you lose some of the value of the Midas view. Right. So how do you deal with that?
Michael
So, and part of that’s part of the problem, right? I mean, they’re part of that going outside the boundaries by letting them outside the boundaries and doing what they want to do is what’s creating the issue. So if you want to do that and you want to continue letting people do that on your staff, that’s putting you at risk. So it’s time to say to yourselves, you know what? I have a way now to take control of this because I really didn’t have it before, but now I do. So I want to put the controls in effect and this is how it should work. And we want to help them accountable for that. Now, I know there’s going to be times, right? You have a stat order. You have patients going through pain.
Michael
Hey, let’s just even remember, Terri, even if you come into the ER, there might even be any orders.
Terri
Right.
Michael
Yet. But you have all these leftover meds, right? No orders yet. The orders have to be put in with our system. We’re going to be able to reconcile those, have a record of it, wasting them even without. So let’s just take what you just first said. They went out, they did it. Let’s just use that as an example. It was a stat. They had to run to the patient. They came back, they had no time. But at least now we have a record of what they have in their hands. And through AI, over time, I can tell if that was a pre filled syringe for a specific drug manufacturer. I’m going to tell whether or not that’s really that syringe.
Michael
Now, if it looked a different color, looks a little diluted, where they put sterile water in there, over time, it’s going to start to recognize that. What does it do? It tags it.
Terri
Right.
Michael
So that’s why I say to you, the AI is very important, because over time, we’re looking at that tablet, those syringe, those markings, what do they look like? And so that can be flagged. So even though they had to do what they had to do for patient care, and we respect that, let’s bring them back into a lane and keep it, what we can apply to it and apply it to it.
Terri
Right.
Michael
But let’s also let them know that, you know what, it’s time now that you should be doing it this way. It’s not. Let’s just go do what we want. Let’s go do what’s supposed to happen. Right?
Terri
Yeah. And the trending, too, right. If somebody is, it’s a one off or, you know, very occasional versus. Everyone else has figured out how to do this, but you keep having these excuses.
Michael
Yeah. Yeah. Terri, think of this for a second. Like, I want you to think it’s like a silent service.
Terri
Right.
Michael
I want you to think of how we take for granted how the electricity to our house or the water gets to our house.
Terri
Right.
Michael
We always take stuff like that for granted. We at Midas want to do that on the wasting side with our intelligence.
Terri
Right.
Michael
We want the industry to have that same confidence. We. Let us hold that for you. We want to provide the intelligence. Let us look at the data, bring it together, reconcile it. Let us be that piece of the puzzle that you don’t have now and provide that as a platform.
Terri
Right. Yeah, no, that sounds good. I had another thought in my head, and it disappeared. Does your team, I’m sure you’ve been talking with a lot of potential clients, being a new product, you’re having a lot of conversations and engaging people in it. Is your team hearing anything in particular from all of the different organizations in terms of what they’re struggling with? I mean, it might be waste. It might be something else. Like, are you gathering any kind of additional information that you’re finding surprising or not really surprising?
Michael
What’s really coming to the forefront is the Orlando.
Terri
Right.
Michael
It’s very challenged, and they don’t have real proof around this, and they wanted. They really want to have some proof around this. So what we’re doing is. And that’s why we fast forwarded on the pro card.
Terri
Right.
Michael
You know, the Midas Pro and the Midas software behind that wasn’t supposed to come out for another couple of months. It’s ready. It’s, you know, it’s ready to go. So, in fact, we are right now touring with hospitals and customers and showcasing and, you know, getting ready for contracts. There are customers in contracts right now that are reviewing. The pushback has not been that at all. It’s like. It’s really, you know, inspirational from that piece, you know, from my experience of what I’ve dealt with other companies and what I’ve done in the past, they’re open. They want to know, how do they meet this challenge? And, you know, what’s so great about what we’re doing? We can do it in phases. We can say, let’s do your ors first. Let’s get you comfortable.
Michael
Or you want to do on your med search side, you want to do certain areas.
Terri
Right.
Michael
The fact that we can take our data, that’s agnostic.
Terri
Right.
Michael
And start to harmonize it in the sense of saying if you’re in one space and you want to waste in another.
Terri
Right.
Michael
You can still do that because I know where your order was. I’m going to look at your line items around what the data points are, but I’m going to make sure it’s reconciled. Not really can do it. So the business right now.
Terri
Right.
Michael
So we want to be flexible for you as a customer, and we want to provide the intelligence that the industry is not addressing this side of the market. It’s just not.
Terri
Yeah, you. You said the word intelligence, and my thought popped right back into my head. The AI, is it also to read the person?
Michael
Yes. So it’s going to look at movements as you walk into, as you. Let’s just say you’re on. You signed on, fingerprint, you’re on. First of all, I just want to look at that clear. So once you put your finger in, you’re right onto the system. You can start wasting. You know, choose your patient just like you do at an ADM or anywhere you are. It’s gonna start to realize in time, it’s also gonna realize, were you working yesterday? What lab coat did you have on? Did it have three pockets, four pockets, five pockets? It starts to look, AI is very smart over time, right. And we’ll start to program it. And it’s on the platform of AWS, right? So with Amazon. And as it gets smarter and smarter, we’re gonna get smarter.
Terri
Right.
Michael
With it. And as it sees, let’s say, Terri, let’s say it was you each day, and it starts to notice, like your wasteland, you have ten waste in one day. Maybe you don’t have any waste the next day.
Terri
Why not?
Michael
That could be a flag. And you’re on the same floor, same patient population. Why aren’t you? Don’t have any waste today. So you can flag that and say, why? Why is that happening? And what does that mean? So when we say that to you, our control zone, which is an overview, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen it, but the control zone is something that you would keep in central pharmacy, probably in the director of pharmacy or chief pharmacy officer on the wall.
Terri
Right.
Michael
And they’ll be able to access things like what’s going on each floor, at each. At each cart, you know, that’s doing the wasting process on the Midas system. Top ten waste person, top ten drugs that are wasted on that cart. Any of the data that’s so important, right? And then I want you to think about this for a second. That control zone, not just for hospitals, then you want to think about how does it affect the system? So a chief pharmacy officer who’s governing the whole system can look at it. What’s going on at this hospital, what’s going on at that hospital around the wasting process, actually look at those carts. Until get down to the granular level, not just what I just said about top ten drugs or users, but the actual replenishment of those RX destroyers that are in there.
Michael
What’s the capacities? And your first time you’re ever going to be alerted, by the way, which has never been done before. We chase these right from the stereo cycle days of the world, is that if you’re, if it needs to be replaced, it’s going to tell you when it’s at 70%, it can alert pharmacy, nursing and building services all at once. You know, this needs to get changed so you’re not chasing those parts of the system. And even when that exchange does happen, those people are on actual video during that event. So we’re monitoring them as well. So, but back to the control zone, just to let you know, you think about it, what it’s doing for hospitals, what will it do for the industry? Right.
Michael
I want you to think of big governments for a moment, because the DEA and the FDA, if they want to start looking what’s happening out in the industry, the aggregate of the data, we’re not giving them patient data. I just want to know the aggregate, what’s going on with specific drugs, dosages and what’s getting disposed of and what’s getting wasted and how many times and where. We don’t have that data anymore at all. We never did. It’s time that we have the ability, we’re going to generate it for you, not just for your system, but the government agencies as well are interested in what we’re doing because they’re going to be able to take this, ingest it and make some wise decisions, even from a manufacturing point of view.
Terri
Right.
Michael
So the system itself, even though we talk about hospitals, you’re going to be able to utilize this system. The Midas few system asCs, you’re going to be able to use it in nursing homes. You’re going to be able to use it anywhere, even outside the healthcare industry. We’re going to be utilizing it in ambulances. That’s still healthcare, but ambulances as well. Anywhere in, let’s just say, you know, wherever they have drugs and they confiscate drugs, so we’re doing things with border patrol. We’re going to be doing things around what’s happening in jails and so on and precincts. So wherever there’s drugs, we have to provide that intelligence about getting rid of them, because that’s part of our pipeline. Because we’re gonna. We have something that we’re coming out on the retail side that’s going to be part of that intelligent take back systems.
Terri
Right.
Michael
Because what, do we go back to these dumb boxes?
Terri
Right? Yeah. Does it integrate with if somebody has a waste assay product?
Michael
So if you have any of those waste assay products, we think in the future those are going to go away with our AI, but more than happy to.
Terri
Right.
Michael
So whenever we come in and we do that, how about we’re Rx intercepting?
Terri
Right.
Michael
And you want to put it through a waste assay side of the business. Go right ahead. We know those have a lot of false positives and false negatives. We know they’re expensive. We know that you can’t test certain things. Right. But listen, we want to be locking arms with everybody. We should be part of the system with everybody. We want to be complimentary. And that’s the only way we can provide a platform that makes sense right now.
Terri
Right.
Michael
And in time, we’ll see what happens in the future, how that all plays out. But happy to, just like we’re happy to tie into the diversion software. Why not on the other side of it, too, right?
Terri
Do you see the Midas replacing other things that an institution has or being an addition to everything that they have? I mean, cameras are one thing that I think of immediately. Right. In your med room, if that’s where the machine is, then you don’t need cameras in the med room.
Michael
Well, keep in mind that we’re only monitoring the event of wasting with our cameras.
Terri
Okay?
Michael
So whatever they want to do on their side with the cameras, to me, you’re still chasing it, right?
Terri
You still don’t really know.
Michael
I’ve been to customers where they tell me that wasting or dispensing the people that are doing it, they know how to block out the cameras. They know how to position their bodies. There’s no AI built in those cameras to understand what’s happening. And no alert, because if with our AI, over time, it’s going to alert you, somebody did blocking.
Terri
Yeah.
Michael
Then it could trigger an RX intercept. Sure. So they’re not interactive, those cameras, right?
Terri
Yeah.
Michael
So this is. This is an addition to. And probably, you probably won’t ever need cameras in time. You know, I think in the years to come. But you know what? I’m, we’re sophisticated. We’re going to stay sophisticated. We’re going to stay cutting edge and want to be disruptive, and we got to provide that confidence because of that.
Terri
Right. All right. Well, it sounds fascinating. I’m looking forward to talking with some of your customers once they’re, like, fully up and had a chance to. I know it takes a while to dial in with any new technology, so I look forward to that.
Michael
You’re months away, so we’ll be happy to have you come and look at it and experience it for yourself. But it’s been a pleasure.
Terri
Absolutely. Thank you. All right. Glad we did this and thanks for your work on this. You’re right. Waste is a problem. And I was just talking to somebody recently that was kind of presenting to their system diversion team, and it was our biggest risk is the waste. And she presented those numbers out of their surveillance software, unaccounted for waste. And so here we are. Waste again.
Michael
That’s right.
Terri
A lot of pieces to it.
Michael
Absolutely. For sure.
Terri
Exactly.
Michael
Let’s provide the intelligence and let’s help everybody.
Terri
Yeah. Great. All right. Thanks very much, Michael.
Michael
Thank you for having me.
