“Drugs don’t work in patients who don’t take them.” This quote, by the former Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, M.D, appeared in a New England Journal of Medicine article on drug therapy and adherence.

There are many reasons (cost, inconvenience, forgetfulness, unpleasant side effects) why patients don’t take their medicine. Medication adherence has become an issue of great concern within the health community, especially as we get older as a nation. So in this spirit, Verizon recently launched what it refers to as the Pill Phone — a new technology that allows people to make sure they keep to their medication regimens and help family members keep to theirs.

At its most basic, the Pill Phone is a medication information and reminder service.

Based on the best selling, medication reference guide (The Pill Book), the Pill Phone is a mobile, digital version of the book providing access to critical information on more than 1,800 medications including dosing, side effects, contraindications, photos and more. Currently, it is the only wireless application to have FDA approval (received in early 2006) for medication management.

An excellent example of the way in which patients can leverage technology to optimize their health care, the Pill Phone offers the following advantages:

- Provides automatic dosing reminders through visual and audio alerts.
- Provides detailed drug information, including the drug name, its picture, its class, warnings, and a side effect profile.
- Tracks and stores pill-taking records.
- Confirms when a dose was taken.

Women are the primary care givers to millions of elderly parents and relatives. In fact, nearly seventy percent of home health care givers are women. This is a tough job but very important, not only to their families but to society as a whole. New communications tools are now available to help make this difficult job easier.

The Pill Phone is just one example of the way in which cutting edge technology can help change how health care has traditionally been delivered. More and more, we are identifying the intersections between health and broadband technology. As broadband technology adoption increases, it offers consumers faster and better access to health information and their health care records—while also making a tremendous difference in medication adherence.

We are only at the beginning stages of what broadband networks can do to improve health care, increase access to health professionals and resources, and reduce health care costs. While a relatively simple application, the Pill Phone demonstrates the power broadband networks coupled with good applications and capable devices can bring to consumers and our healthcare system.

Related posts:

1. Improving Adherence with the Help of Pharmacies
2. Payment Reform: A System-wide Solution to Medication Adherence
3. A healthcare and medication organizer that could help medication adherence
4. Drug Adherence Tools That Meet Patients Where They Are
5. National Consumers League – National Medication Adherence Campaign

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 30th, 2008 at 8:23 am and is filed under Innovation, Rx, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.