Very interesting post on using mobile technology to increase consumer drug compliance, along with great examples of new technologies in play. A few thoughts on the questions you pose at the end of your post.

By way of example, if you look at the adoption rates of personal health records, consumers did not use them unless they were incented to do so by their employers or they were pre-populated (at least to some degree) by either payers or providers. And admittedly PHR adoption rates are still low today. Thus, one might anticipate a similar uptake of drug adherence tools as your blog suggests. Only the most compulsive consumer would take the time to log the relevant details of every medication she was taking. However, if consumers could download this information (e.g., from their PHR, physician’s portal or their pharmacy profile) and the reminder was made available when they needed to act upon it (e.g., it’s time to take that Lipitor pill, renew your prescription) then the utility of the service increases and adoption of mobile reminders should follow.

Our research does shows that consumers will respond to their physicians recommendation to use such tools and are interested in receiving reminders by mobile phone. IDC Health Insights, as part of its Telemedicine Report Series, recently conducted a survey of more than 1200 consumers in the U.S. Approximately 35% of survey respondents indicated that they were somewhat or very interested in receiving health reminders and just under 6% reported that they already did so.

The bottom line, consumers will begin to use these tools when they see value in using them, and provided it doesn’t take too much effort on their part.

Lynne A. Dunbrack
IDC Health Insights
Program Director, Provider IT Strategies