Experts highlighted the benefits of a new pill-reminder application for mobile devices at a summit held Wednesday for the mHealth series at George Washington University in Washington D.C.
The event is the third in a series of mHealth presentations, encouraging the development of mobile technology to improve health care.
Wednesday's program was focused on a mobile phone app aimed at getting patients to stick more diligently with their prescription regimen. This "adherence," as it's called, is important in improving health in people taking regular medications.
The program would alert patients to take their pills through regular reminders, with either a ring or vibration to tell them it was time to take their medication.
Results for a recent study of the Pill Phone App, presented at the event by Dr. Samir Patel, suggested that the application was well accepted and widely used by those taking part in the study.
While it was a small study (only 50 participants), the data also indicated a trend toward increased prescription refill rates with use of the Pill Phone app.
The 7-month study was funded with a grant from Qualcomm's Wireless Reach initiative, with contributions from One Economy, Cricket Communications and VOCEL.
While experts at the conference stipulated that the pilot study was too small to make any definite conclusions, the problem adherence is one that needs to be pursued.
Dr. Richard Katz, Director of Cardiology at George Washington University Medical Center, quoted former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, who once said "Drugs don't work on patients who don't take them."
Helping patients properly take their medication is an important way to lengthen life. In a recent study noted by conference participant Dr. Wendy Nilsen, Health Scientist Administrator of the national Institutes of Health, 8.7 pecent of those that did not properly adhere to their treatment regimen died. Meanwhile, the death rate plunged to 4.1 percent for so-called "good adherers."
Nilsen also discussed the difficulty of tracking patient adherence. She said that "Cadillac interventions" for conditions like hypertension would cost too much to do on the wide range of patients with the ailment. "But we can't afford not to," she concluded, pointing out that hypertension leads to heart disease and eventually death in many patients, making adherence important in managing chronic illnesses.
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