HealthTech of the Week: Not just interactions. How is Medbase redefining clinical decision support?

The Healthtech of the Week series is not just about innovation. It is primarily about the people who are its recipients and the teams behind the various ideas, implementation, testing, certification, and deployment. In a world where drug decisions are less and less about a single condition and a single drug, the safety of pharmacotherapy is becoming a strategic challenge for everyone. This is where Medbase comes in, a solution born out of the clinical and scientific experience of Scandinavian medicine. We were intrigued by how it shows the real relationship between evidence-based knowledge and the support of doctors at the point of patient care. It is a story of how organizing information is becoming one of the key tools for improving the quality of treatment today.

The story of Medbase begins not in a start-up garage, but in an academic and clinical environment. The roots of the project go back to the Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm County Centre, where nearly two decades ago practitioners encountered a very specific problem: the growing complexity of pharmacotherapeutic decisions. Polypharmacy, multimorbidity, and an aging population have meant that doctors and pharmacists increasingly have to make decisions in conditions of information overload and time pressure. 

Medbase was created in response to this gap. From the outset, its ambition was to organize key information on the safety of pharmacotherapy and present it in a form that is useful at the very moment when a clinical decision is made. The idea was not to create yet another database, but a tool that guides the user from risk identification to recommended action, in the spirit of Evidence-Based Medicine. 

– From the very beginning, we knew that it was not enough to describe the risks. Clinicians need clear, evidence-based guidance on what to do next. From the outset, Medbase was intended to be a support at the point of patient care, not just another tab to open after hours. Our databases are alive and constantly evolving, taking into account the dynamics of the field of pharmacotherapy. New data is identified and evaluated for quality and clinical relevance, and then implemented into Medbase resources on a quarterly basis. The process is overseen by a qualified clinical team of physicians and pharmacists specializing in clinical pharmacology with practical clinical and scientific experience, says Sławomir Kmak, Regional CEE Business Development Leader & Head of Operations Poland.

Although people are the most important aspect of every aspect of the work, Medbase does not underestimate the development of artificial intelligence. How has it been applied in their case?

AI, flexibility, and scalability

The creators of Medbase have taken a balanced, even conservative approach to the use of artificial intelligence, deliberately differing from the prevailing enthusiasm in the healthtech industry. AI algorithms play a supporting role here and are mainly used at the stage of searching scientific publication databases. The core work (including clinical evaluation of sources, content updates, and formulation of recommendations) remains in the hands of a team of experts. As the creators of the solution emphasize, the clinical knowledge on which therapeutic decisions are based must be validated by people, clearly defined procedures, and experience, not by algorithms. This approach strengthens Medbase’s credibility, especially in the context of integration with healthcare systems and clinical responsibility.

At the same time, Medbase has been designed from the outset as a scalable and flexible solution. The platform supports integration with EHR systems, mapping of local drug trade names, and adaptation to the specifics of national registries. An important part of the implementation process is also the training of medical personnel, tailored to the needs of a specific facility or the entire healthcare system.

The company is also actively involved in educational and scientific activities. An example of this is its cooperation with the Supreme Medical Chamber and the NIL-IN Network of Innovators, which has provided training for doctors and dentists. Sharing best clinical practices and experience is considered an integral part of the mission. From a systemic perspective, interoperability is also crucial, as Medbase natively supports standards such as INN, ATC, ICD-10, and SNOMED, enabling efficient cooperation with local registries and IT systems. It is this adaptability that has allowed for implementation in more than 20 countries, including at the level of central healthcare systems. However, this is not the only thing that sets this project apart.

Naturalness, locality, and…the future

A distinctive feature of Medbase is its inclusion of natural medicines, dietary supplements, and herbal preparations. The platform offers a dedicated module that analyzes their efficacy, safety, and potential interactions with prescription drugs. In everyday clinical practice, this area is often overlooked, even though it has a real impact on the safety and effectiveness of treatment.

– If we want to talk about the real safety of pharmacotherapy, we cannot ignore the fact that patients combine different forms of treatment. Our task is to take this context into account in our risk analysis, rather than pretending that it does not exist. What is more, the same reasoning applies to other databases that comprehensively support all areas of pharmacotherapy safety based on the latest knowledge, explains Sławomir Kmak. 

The Healthtech of the Week team couldn’t help but ask about plans for the future. Medbase’s mentoring by IMiD and the University Clinical Center in Gdańsk opens a new stage of dialogue with the Polish healthcare system. As the founders emphasize, this is an opportunity to better understand the local needs of clinicians and further adapt the solution to market realities. 

The conclusions drawn from participation in the MCSC and the jury’s opinions confirmed the chosen direction of the project’s development and strengthened Medbase’s position as a substantive partner. Strategically, the company aims to become a tool supporting all pharmacotherapeutic decisions – both in Poland and in Europe, based on the experience gained in the Nordic markets, where Medbase already functions as part of the system infrastructure. Something tells us that this extremely interesting innovation will soon gain momentum with the forecasted trends in medtech for 2026. 

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Stay tuned for more in the “HealthTech of the Week” series, where we’ll continue to uncover fascinating stories from the world of medical technologies that are changing the face of healthcare. If you’re working on an innovative project in the field of new technologies and medicine or want to recommend an interesting solution, contact us at: [email protected].