High-Tech Med Compliance Hits New Heights

posted on May. 08, 2019 at 3:52 pm

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A Consumer Reports survey says that 55 percent of Americans regularly take a prescription medicine.⁽¹⁾ Just to be clear, this is not an account about America’s love affair with pills. Quite the opposite! This is a story about people who genuinely need their medication – but sometimes forget to take it, don’t know how to take it, or mistakenly double dose.

Nonadherence is a serious matter. A review in the Annals of Internal Medicine estimates that medication nonadherence causes nearly 125,000 deaths, 10 percent of hospitalizations, and costs our healthcare system between $100 and $289 billion a year.⁽²⁾That’s billion…with a “b.”

Enter AI-powered products created to monitor and improve medication adherence. Here are several high-tech advancements that may help your patients stick to their prescribed Rx program.

The Genie’s Out of the Bottle

Pillsy, manufacturer of a smart pill bottle, gives patients a “digital assistant” for vitamins and medications. Everything starts with a bottle cap that “talks” to an app, which “talks” to the patient and the patient’s healthcare team – as well as a caretaker and/or love one if so desired.⁽³⁾

The package, available at amazon.com, delivers: ⁽³⁾

a smart bottle cap that beeps and blinks if a dosage is missed.
an app to track each time the bottle is opened.
a warning “bing” if the patient attempts a double dose.
a dosage history.
a text to the patient’s healthcare team if a medication dose is skipped.

Breathe a Sigh of Relief

Smart AI-powered inhalers are fast-tracking their way into medicine cabinets, purses, pockets, briefcases, and kids’ backpacks. Each product is slight different but all aim to better manage asthma and/or COPD.

Amiko’s Respiro^® Breath Sense⁽⁴⁾ generates data pertaining to individualized patient medication use, compliance, and lung health patterns. All this information is relayed back to the patient’s healthcare team. This information, Amiko says on its website, “drives patient engagement, provides personalized support and coaching, and improves compliance and inhaler technique.”⁽⁴⁾
Adherium’s Hailie^TMSolution⁽⁵⁾ helps monitor inhaler use via a smartphone app, available for both iOS and Android, and a sensor that attaches to the patient’s prescription inhaler medication. The company claims that the Hailie^TM solution increases medication adherence at around to 180 percent in children and 59 percent in adults.⁽⁶⁾
Propeller Health’s ⁽⁷⁾ smart inhaler solution features eight FDA 510(k) approvals. ⁽⁶⁾The solution has been part of at least 15 clinical studies, leading Propeller Health to conclude that its product improves medication adherence by more 58 percent.⁽⁷⁾

Inside Out

Proteus Discover system,⁽⁸⁾ by Proteus Digital Health, figured out how to place sensors inside pills. Once a patient swallows the pill, signals filled with vital data first go to a patch on the patient’s body, then on to an app, and finally to a web browser portal – where a patient’s caregiver can track health metrics and intervene if needed.⁽⁸⁾ The company tested its solution in partnerships with Texas-based Children’s Health and California-based Barton Health.⁽⁹⁾

Eyeing the Future

AiCure deploys a mobile app that monitors medication adherence.⁽¹⁰⁾The application identifies the patient through computer vision technology, and once verified, it records the patient ingesting the drug. The information is then relayed to a web-based portal where caregivers review and monitor patient compliance patterns.⁽⁹⁾ Since its debut in 2010, AiCure has participated in multiple clinical trials and received several innovation grants from the National Institutes of Health.⁽⁹⁾

In a Heartbeat

Bioflux, a high-precision, single-unit mobile cardiac telemetry (MCT) device, provides real-time monitoring and transmission of a patient’s ambulatory ECG information.⁽¹¹⁾ Between the company’s proprietary software, highly customizable reports, and 24/7 monitoring center, this wearable AI-powered solution delivers a viable device for remote cardiac monitoring. Overall, the company’s goal is assist physicians with the diagnosis of heart conditions in real-time, enhance patient outcomes, improve patient health, and decrease healthcare costs.⁽³⁾

RESOURCES

1) Too Many Meds? America’s Love Affair With Prescription medication

2) Interventions to Improve Adherence to Self-administered Medications for Chronic Diseases in the United States: A Systematic Review

3) Pillsy ~ Take Control

4) Respiro | Upgrading respiratory care

5) Adherium Launches HailieTM Solution Direct-to-Consumer in the U.S. for Better Asthma and COPD Management

6) 4 Ways In Which AI Is Revolutionizing Respiratory Care

7) Propeller delivers consistent and significant clinical improvements

8) Discover – Proteus Digital Health

9) Medication nonadherence is a $300 billion problem-here’s how 3 IT vendors want to solve it

10) AiCure – Everyone responds differently to disease and treatment.

11) Bioflux—advanced remote cardiac monitoring technology