Who ate all the chips?
An article on emerging technology recently caught my attention. A tiny microchip is inserted into each tablet to keep track of how many have been swallowed and when. If patients forget to take their medication as prescribed, they are sent text message reminders.
What is interesting is that technology providers and the industry are again focusing on the non-issue – specifically non-intentional adherence. Reminding people to take their medication won’t help those who are intentionally choosing not to, and in terms of percentages, this is by far the majority. Reminder text messages, calls or emails are highly unlikely to make any difference to this group.
Addressing underlying, patient-specific reasons why (and why not) medication is taken (intentional and non-intentional), is where adherence solutions need to be focused. In fact, the good solutions already do this. However, the pitfalls here are that these programmes aren’t as easy to explain, nor as appealing as a chip in a tablet, are usually bound by confidentiality issues, and as a result, don’t tend to get the positive exposure they should.
Although this new technology is a great tool to identify and then trigger a patient intervention, this is only the start of where the real work and opportunities begin.
Jonny Duder
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