Visual Thought Labs

Anesthesia medication safety

Medication safety that keeps attention on the patient.

VTL checks medications as they’re given and documents them automatically in the EHR.

  • Privacy-first
  • Designed for HIPAA-regulated care
Why it matters Request a demo
Built by anesthesiologists and engineers Designed for the pace of the OR

Why VTL exists

Medication safety checks are usually standardized. In the OR, they’re often missing.

Patient riskLimited oversight and accountability increase medication error risk.

Administrative burdenManual systems add errors, inefficiency, and burnout.

Across the hospital

Medication safety is a shared responsibility.

Clinicians and systems verify medications at multiple points before they reach the patient.

  1. 01OrderPhysician
  2. 02ReviewPharmacist
  3. 03Verify & administerNurse

Throughout Clinical systems screen orders for dose limits, allergies, and interactions.

Fewer safeguards in the OR

But in the OR, one clinician handles every step.

Unlike the medicine floors, one person handles selection, preparation, administration, and documentation alongside patient care. This causes errors.

  1. 01 Select
  2. 02 Prepare
  3. 03 Administer
  4. 04 Document

The evidence

Medication errors are common in the OR.

Findings from direct observation of anesthesia care during surgery.

5.3%

of medication administrations involved an error or adverse drug event.

  • 3,671 administrations
  • 277 operations
  • Prospective, single-center study
79.3%

of events were preventable.

US$42B

estimated annual global cost of medication errors.

World Health Organization
Clinical evidence Nanji et al., Anesthesiology (2016) Global context WHO · Medication Without Harm

The VTL platform

Safety, built into the workflow.

01 Verify at administration.
02 Document automatically in the EHR.
03 Track and verify medication safety ambiently and automatically.

Ensuring standard safety practices

The seven rights, brought into anesthesia.

VTL supports familiar safeguards without pulling focus from the patient.

Framework sources Systematic review ↗ NCBI Nursing Pharmacology ↗
  1. 01Patient
  2. 02Medication
  3. 03Dose
  4. 04Route
  5. 05Time
  6. 06Reason
  7. 07Documentation

The team

Built in the OR.

Anesthesiologists and engineers focused on medication safety.

Julian Cobert, MD

Julian Cobert, MD

Cofounder & CEO

Duke · UPenn · UCSF
Timothy Heintz, MD

Timothy Heintz, MD

Cofounder

Harvard · Anesthesiology · Engineering
Christian Williams

Christian Williams

ML Engineer

UC Berkeley
Hunter Mills

Hunter Mills

Full Stack Engineer

Stanford

For clinical partners

See VTL in action.

Explore the platform, EHR integration, privacy, and security.

Request a demo