Picture Rx – A Safer Way to Take Meds
Posted by | Posted in Chronic Disease, Design, Education, Food for thought, Innovation, Mobile Phones, Pharmaceuticals | Posted on 11-08-2009
My PictureRx is designed for the domestic US market, but I thought I would post it on the off chance that it might stir up some ideas for situations in low resource settings. Not clear if they have gone mobile with this. While there are a slew of SMS pill reminders (first used in a widespread way in the “South”) it is important to think about this in development context due to the coming wave of chronic diseases – how well do SMS only medication remdiners work for people with co-morbidities and complex drug regimines? Also important to note – this is just one type of tool among many, and doesn’t seem like it helps with remembering whether you took your pill or not (have you ever looked at your watch for the time and then forgotten the time 10 mintues later?). The design looks slick and you can sign up for email reminders, however I am not sure what the efficacy is. Other issue to keep in mind with SMS reminders or something like this – while you can improve pill popping rates (adherence), there are many situations where people don’t want to take their meds (side effects or getting plan fed up with the polypharmacy).

Related articles by Zemanta
- Text Message Reminders help Teen Transplant Patients (textually.org)

![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=96fdd245-2ecf-4a86-8bcc-17ef352b8114)