January 08, 2009
Smarter Smartphones for People With Chronic Disease
A new service called eMedMobile has been introduced to address the problem of poor medication compliance in individuals with chronic illnesses. eMedMobile is a service developed by Leap of Faith Technologies and funded by the National Institute on Aging and the National Cancer Institute.
eMedMobile was originally developed for cancer patients in clinical trials, and it is now available to consumers so that anyone who is taking a number of medications, or who is a caregiver for someone who is, has help. With eMedMobile, a smartphone can read information from a smart label on the medicine bottle to help a patient or a family member identify the right medicine and when it is time to take it. The smart labels have small electronic chips in them containing data about the medication being taken. The phone reads the data on the chip and provides feedback about the medicine.
The system can send alerts to caregivers if a medication is missed. it can notify the person with a message from the phone. Making smartphones smarter can help people identify the right medication at the right time to avoid errors and serious side effects.
The pilot study is being conducted through a grant from the National Institute on Aging. Participants must be age 50 or older, taking at least one medication for hypertension. Leap of Faith supplies the phone and service during the 90-day study. Participants can use the phone as their normal cellphone.
Posted by rsk at January 8, 2009 09:24 AM