CoverMyMeds is a company in a brilliant niche. ePA - Electronic Prior Authorizations. Usually a doctor's prescription reaches pharmacy, which informs patient when to pick it up. If the drug needs the insurance company's authorization, it's up to the Pharmacist to notice that and get authorization process started (includes paperwork, calls, faxes). Patient may not even find out till they arrive...
Currently there are a number of hardware-based solutions in the market that aim to help the patient take the right medication at the right time. The conventional options of boxes, organizers, dispensers, watches etc have been there for the longest time. The last few years have seen devices get a bit smarter with phone, internet, cellular connectivity and some built-in decision support (alerts,...
Jitterbug Wireless is a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) founded in 2006. They offer simplified mobile hardware and service targeted towards baby boomers, with the value proposition being the opposite of a feature-rich phone. Few big, buttons and great customer service are it's selling points for seniors who are looking for hassle-free wireless connectivity. Verizon Wireless is their main...
As I've written before, medication adherence is an undeniably critical problem for the healthcare system. Most startups in this area have taken the approach of finding novel ways to remind or monitor the patient about medication, with the assumption that the problem is forgetfulness. Instead, PictureRx offers something that tries to solve a much more fundamental cause of poor adherence- lack of...
Drug safety surveillance (more formally, pharmacovigilence) is a serious and complex issue. Once a drug is FDA-approved and on the market, it needs to be constantly monitored for long/short-term side effects. That process is currently rigid: once observed conclusively, these effects are reported by providers to relevant authorities and disseminated back to all medical community (after some lag...
Asthmapolis is brainchild of David Van Sickle a researcher at University of Wisconsin-Madison. The basic idea is to equip inhalers with a GPS tag to determine when and where was it used by the patient. When such individual (de-identified, of course) medication data is aggregated, it can provide population care insight like environmental triggers and disease impact. Seems like there are three...
Of all the consumer healthcare device ideas, this may be the most ingenious one. In August 2009, Massachusetts-based Vitality announced availability of GlowCaps- a web-enabled $99 cap for prescription bottles that helps remind patients to take their medications on time. GlowCaps fits the standard pill container, and uses short-range wireless communication to talk to a gateway hub at home that is...
Zume Life is a San Jose start-up that is planning to develop its own dedicated device to allow individuals to keep track of and manage their own care regimen. It's target users are individuals with complex care requirements- taking a multiple medications, specific diets, frequent measurements, daily exercise etc. What they offer is a 'Zumi Life Service' that helps coordinate the logistics of...
NLM may not be known for Health 2.0 efforts, but this one surely qualifies for one. Pillbox.nlm.nih.gov is a fantastic tool that lets users identify medications by the way they look. A beautiful Adobe Flex powered interface enables selection of various physical characteristics like shape, color, size etc. and comes up with matches. The website is not currently recommended for clinical use-...
RememberItNow is an online medication reminder service. Once you enter the pill information (what, when) it can send email/text reminder messages at the right time. Also included are some features around access control , scheduling, charting, journal etc. The site was inspired by a true story, and I agree that we can do better by utilizing web technology for medication adherence. But I'm not...