According to Ben Thompson, CEO of Proteus Biomedical, iMeds is going to be bigger than iTunes. That is a very bold statement to make with out any evidence of its efficacy in the actual patient population. It will be a very useful tool in helping show patient adherence, as well as the therapeutic effect of a medication, but to go as far as that statement is a little ambitious. As stated in my previous blog post, electronics is the best way to view patient adherence rather than go based on what the patient tells you or whats gathered by the clinician.
Right now they are testing the iMeds "Raisin" with hypertensive, heart failure, and tuberculosis patients. The Raisin actually runs on electricity produced by the patients stomach acid. The second part of the medication, the patch, actually detects the electric charge generated. The patch electronically records when the patient ingested the pill, as well as vital signs. After the patch detects these signs it sends the information electronically to the patients mobile phone and to the internet where caregivers can analyze it.
One problem that can be seen with this is that patients have to actually take their medication. A lot of medications actually forego getting picked up from the pharmacy do many reasons, including cost. Therefore, if patients don't pick up their medications due to cost, they will not want to pay for the additional cost of this "Raisin". This just leads back to the main intervention that should take place being pharmacists and MTM services to explain the importance of taking their medication and disease prevention. Even though there can be some fallbacks, overall this technology is very beneficial for the healthcare field.
http://mobihealthnews.com/5150/tedmed-imeds-will-be-bigger-than-itunes/
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