How to make sure someone took their medication

Out of the University of Florida they have come up with a sure fire way to make sure that you have been properly medicating. While these sound great, it would be taking another pill essentially for some one to monitor the contents of your insides. I see this technology in the future being useful under two conditions. First that the patient does not need to wear a special watch or device which the microchip communicates, maybe if it worked with a cell phone. Secondly only if it was standard in specialized types of medication and was part of the pill itself and not a separate dose.


Tattletale Pills

Health Reform and Health Devices

Today I came across an article that had several interesting thoughts about the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) which has approximately $20 million slated towards healthcare information technology according to IDC.

Continua Health Alliance pushed for a mention of remote monitor devices for medical re-reimbursement by insurance companies for software and technology which were creating a "meaningful use" of technology. Although this phase opens the door it leaves more to interpreted by what is considered meaningful use. Essentially it could be a limiting factor on deciding what type of healthcare technology is eligible for reimbursement.

I think the case for "meaningful use" should be based upon benefit provided to the stakeholders of an individuals health. By this I mean not only the patient but also the health provider and the insurance company. So if a product not only improves the quality of life of a patient, reduces cost for a health provider and at the same time reduces the amount of claims made to an insurance company, everyone wins. This product should be classified as "meaningful use" and therefore be strongly backed as needing to be a reimbursable product.

Article: Healthcare reform gives health-monitoring electronics a new diagnosis

Personal Web Site For Your Health

Reading the New York Times I came across an article which made me think "at last" because it talked about centralizing your own health information. The idea is that a company which currently has a vast amount of health information could be paired up with your personal information in order to give you a personalized heath plan for individuals. What I imagine is that the site would for instance, know you have diabetes and give you not only ways to help manage it and information on your progress but also could tell you about new research or drugs which you could ask your doctor about.
The article estimated that about 80% of health decision are made by individuals. In order for individuals to be making the right decisions they need to have relevant information at their fingertips. Right now the best alternative is the as the article puts "standard second opinion of diagnosis and treatment has become a patients Google search." Not to say this isn't a powerful way to go about getting a second opinion but shouldn't there be more health tailored site which can work on an individual basis? This company based in San Francisco (my home away from home) is called Keas has put together a team which knows how to use a computer and a database. I expect only good things to come from this.

NY Times Article
October 6th 2009

Mobile Phone Company Incentive's Pill Compliance

Help sometimes comes from interesting places. Today I read an article which highlighted a company (XoutTB) which has created stamp sized patches that can detect traces of medication in a users urine. When the paper is "exposed" to your medication traces it reveals a number which can be text messaged into your mobile phone provider. This number is not revealed unless you have been taking your medication. The mobile service provider rewards individuals who are taking their medication by giving them some free air time minutes.

It seems that there are more people than we might normally think that have a vested interest in our health. The first thing that came to my mind is that the healthier we are, the longer we live and use our mobile phones. Maybe this is not the case, but evidently it is better for everyone if we can find a way to improve prescription pill compliance.

This is a great idea on trying to incentive compliance but the procedure and or idea is still in its infancy. Other solutions should be sought out as the United States in particular is faced with the largest price tag on Health Care. It is said that by 2050 that one third of the U.S. will be over the age of 60. This demographic swing is likely to create a large crisis not only in health care but again in the financial markets.

http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13725667

The Next Wave of Health Records

I came across an article today which made my mind race. Large companies such as Google, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft are working towards creating a place where patients can monitor their health devices. This includes glucose meters, blood pressure cuffs, and what I see for the future of pill compliance devices. All we need is a device which can transmit data which about when a patent took their pill and the information could be managed through either Google Health, or Microsoft Health Vault.


"Google, IBM Promote Online Health Records" - WSJ

The biggest player so far in the standardization of health information technology and communication seems to be the Continua Health Alliance. Continua is a large group of technology companies and medical device makers which is lead by Intel. Their goal is to create a communication standard for medical devices which can then send the data to Google health account to be monitored by the patent. If the patent wishes they can share this information with family, caregivers, or doctors to create a support network for their health.

Continua Health Alliance

This is an amazing step towards making prescription medication manageable for patents. The accountability provided by these systems will greatly increase aging adults ability to remain independent and provide ease of mind for many pill takers. Caregivers can also remotely monitor patients health activities from the internet making managed care services more efficient.

Stanford Entrepreneurship Week

Last week Stanford finished up their entrepreneur week on campus. It had guest speakers, workshops and social events which drew large crowds. It also gave Jarrett and I a chance to talk with students, faculty and other entrepreneurs about our project. One of the more interesting events I attended was the pitching workshop.

The workshop was about how to organize and present on your business. Initially I thought it would be specific to the topic of pitching to investors but they took a broad approach which could be applied to any presentation. The speakers reiterated a lot of what I heard when I saw Guy Kawasaki speak at the Plug & Play Tech center in Santa Clara but made several other points that were interesting. They focused on distilling the information down to a level that would convey the idea without any any details and to identify what you want your audience to walk away feeling or thinking. One way of conveying meanings or emotions was through graphics. Initially seemed obvious, being a marketing major but it did get me to think more about how to engineer those graphics in order to provoke specific emotions.

The most lasting thing I learned through attending E-week was how important your network is. Finding the right people to talk to can be challenging and it requires getting to know a lot of people. This event was a great way of getting to know what other entrepreneurs are working on. It also gave me some insight about what to expect the next wave of businesses coming out of Stanford were going to look like. Overall it was a great experience and I got lots of free pens from their sponsors.

Incentives Push Doctors to E-Prescribe

Reading the Wall Street Journal this morning I came across an article which had several interesting things to say. The article shows a growing trend to connect information technology to our nations medical practices. In order to reinforce this it was proposed that doctors who don't use electronic forms of prescribing medication could have their Medicare reimbursements reduced by 1% in 2012 and 2% by 2014. The article estimated that it will be $25,000 - $45,000 per doctor per year in order to keep all their patients information safe, current and useful. So if a medical provider doctor does more than $2,500,000 in Medicare services a year it would be within their interest to have their systems in place by 2012. The reduction of Medicare reimbursement would hurt the larger medical care providers first before smaller ones as 1 or 2% could be a significant amount of money.

"E-Prescribing" has its advantages too because it can minimize costs by reducing errors in prescriptions. It will do a background check of current medications taken by a patient and look for drug conflicts along with search for generic drugs which are available at lower costs. These systems could pay for themselves if utilized because it would create a more efficient medical service.

Public health is important enough to our country that the Obama administration plans to spend $50 billion over five years to encourage the adoption of health information technology. This aid will allow doctor to be better connected with the pharmacy. The next stage of this is the pharmacy will need to be better connected to the patient in order for this system to be complete from prescribing to digesting the pills.

There are some software companies that are already operating in this market place including links placed below. The way I see it is they are in need of a product which completes the prescription drug delivery all the way to your bathroom counter. Potentiality they would need a product and addition software which completes the prescription information technology chain.

This is a great step towards making health easier to manage with the use of information technology.

"Incentives Push Doctors to E-Prescribe" -WSJ