GlowCap Medication Reminder

Improving patient adherence would reduce the cost of healthcare - insurers pay about twice as much to treat patients who forget to take drugs to fight high cholesterol and other chronic conditions. And then there is the most important reason for patients to faithfully take the pills they are prescribed: It may save their lives.

Many people don't skip prescribed doses on purpose - they simply forget. But Vitality Inc., a Cambridge start-up, says it has a way to help them remember. It recently unveiled GlowCap, a device that fits standard-size pill bottles. It's embedded with a small light that begins flashing at a preset time when the patient is supposed to take a medication. If the cap isn't removed within an hour - signaling that the patient has failed to take a dose - an alarm sounds.

Setting up a GlowCap is extremely simple: just insert the included watch batteries at the time you want to take the medicine. Then, every day thereafter, at the correct times, the GlowCap flashes as a visual reminder and periodically plays a short melody until the pill bottle is opened.

Vitality, a four-employee company that completed its first round of funding in April, is selling GlowCap for $29.95 on its website, http://www.glowcaps.com/, and through Amazon.com.

Vitality is conducting studies in conjunction with the Harvard University Center for Connected Health in Cambridge to see how much of an impact GlowCap has on keeping patients on schedule.

David A. Rose, Vitality's founder and chief executive, envisions the device one day being as familiar to patients as the amber prescription vial.

"When people think about the cost of embedding a chip in a pill cap, they see with volume it can get down to a few dollars per bottle," Rose said. "That can make it a very cheap component of packaging if it gets people to take the medication they should be taking."

Rose was also the founder and chief executive of Ambient Devices, whose products are familiar to anyone who has shopped in a Brookstone store. Ambient made products that emitted subtle signals - for example, it sold a desktop orb that glowed different colors to signal whether the stock market was up or down. One of his best-known inventions is an umbrella that glows when the forecast calls for rain.

"What we learned at Ambient is people pay a lot of attention to devices if they're in their peripheral vision every day," Rose said. "The data is affected by your behavior, and if you're reminded about that behavior throughout the day, you're going to take action to change that behavior."

Next year, Vitality plans to release “GlowCap Connect” that can also send a wireless signal to alert a caregiver when a patient forgets to take medication, or send an order to a pharmacy when it's time for a refill.

By one estimate, the US economy loses $100 billion annually because of patients who don't take prescribed drugs. That includes everything from higher insurance costs to lost productivity, said Dr. Karen Smith, vice president of medical relations for AstraZeneca, a British drug giant that has a research facility in Waltham.

But Smith and other healthcare professionals were quick to point out that forgetfulness is only one part of the problem. The high cost of medication, fears of side effects, and poor communication between patients and physicians are all factors, said Dr. Stanley Wulf, chief medical officer for InfoMedics Inc., a patient feedback company in Reading.

GlowCap "is a sophisticated tool that addresses forgetfulness and might help some people, but it's not a comprehensive solution to nonadherence," Wulf said. "You have to keep in mind that forgetfulness only accounts for 25 percent of nonadherence."

Wulf said that of all the prescriptions written, only about a third are ever filled. Of the patients who do pick up their prescriptions, about half will have their adherence levels fall over time, particularly if they suffer from chronic conditions like high cholesterol and hypertension.

"We know that 20 percent of the patients will be adherent and do whatever they're told to do," Wulf said. "And we know that another 20 percent will refuse to take their medication - even if you went and put the pill in their mouth, they'd spit it out. It's that middle 60 percent, and the patients have a wide range of reasons for not taking their medication."

Smith said a solution starts with discussions between doctors and patients, and often comes down to addressing a patient's particular needs.

"If forgetfulness is the issue, GlowCaps may be the solution," she said.

-Adapted from “It's time to take your medicine: Cambridge start-up says its high-tech gadget can help save lives, cut healthcare costs, boost pharmacies' business” By Dave Copeland, The Boston Globe , November 17, 2008, and “Never Forget to Take Medication Again: Vitality GlowCaps Now Available on Amazon.com” By: Business Wire, Nov. 17, 2008 , http://in.sys-con.com/node/750719 retrieved 11/24/08.

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