Each year, medication nonadherence costs the U.S. healthcare system hundreds of billions of dollars. To go along with that, players in healthcare, life sciences, and technology spend billions to help solve the issue. In fact, the global market for medication adherence solutions and technologies should grow to $6.0 billion by 2025, according to a report from BCC Research. To help you keep track of these new solutions, PM360 provides a look at eight of the most recent.
MyMeds Engage
MyMeds
Rajiv R. Shah, MD
Founder and CEO
MyMeds
rajiv@my-meds.com
MyMeds takes a Digital + Human approach to medication adherence. Designed by patients, caregivers, pharmacists, and physicians, the ACE Medication Experience is based on principles of cognitive psychology that focus on changing medication-taking behaviors for the long term.
As healthcare moves to value-based care, the medication experience is foundational for success. The MyMeds ACE Medication Experience is comprised of three solutions that work independently, or together:
- Adhere: omni-channel consumer and caregiver platform that focuses on education via WhyMeds
- Connect: proprietary algorithms fueled by real-time data
- Engage: clinical care team platform
MyMeds Engage—the company’s newest product—debuted in 2020. This clinical platform is powered by proprietary algorithms that integrate multiple data sources and provide actionable insights as early as Day 1; not Days 15 – 45, which is the norm today. The Engage platform allows care teams to close the loop between patients, pharmacies, and physicians to improve adherence and address any gaps. Engage can be customized for STARS, Kidney Care, Specialty Rx, or other populations.
SureMed
Omnicell
Betsy Martinelli
Director, Corporate Marketing
Omnicell, Inc.
betsy.martinelli@omnicell.com
Omnicell now offers a 30-day blister card option in its SureMed by Omnicell line of multi-med adherence packaging. This option enhances pharmacy workflow and facilitates ease of use for patients and caregivers. Studies have shown up to 90% adherence rates with the use of multiple medication adherence packaging.1
The new SureMed 30-Day Time Pass Cards are a cost-effective option for patients with 30-day prescriptions. The 6 x 5 format reduces the number of packs needed annually compared with the weekly 7 x 4 card format. When used with Omnicell Guided Packing software, pharmacies can print directly on the card, including logo and compliance prescription information.
The disposable SureMed 30-Day Time Pass Cards simplify billing practices by ensuring a full script is filled at the time of packaging. The single-time pass makes it easier to scan contents, and fewer packs need to be verified compared to weekly multidose packs.
Other features include:
- USP 671 Class B Compliant Package
- Up to 12 medications per time pass with Guided Packing software
- Flexibility to print vertically or horizontally
- Bold color scheme to aid caregivers and patients in identifying correct time and medications
- Perforated blisters
References:
1. Pinto S, et al. Innovations in Pharmacy. 2018;9(1).
ID-Cap System
etectRx
Eric Buffkin
President and CEO
etectRx
info@etectrx.com
etectRx, a digital health company, developed the FDA-cleared ID-Cap System to provide unequivocal confirmation of adherence to oral medications. Cleared by the FDA in late 2019, the ID-Cap System is an ID-Capsule with an ingestible sensor, a wearable Reader, a Patient App for medication tracking, and a custom Dashboard for care teams.
When the ID-Capsule is ingested, it emits a low-power digital message from within the patient, to the externally worn Reader, confirming a time-stamped ingestion event. The Reader conveys a message to the Patient App, confirming medication was taken. The patient’s care team sees in real time when the patient took their medication, via the Clinician Dashboard. This allows care teams to optimize dosing regimens and intervene in real time to improve patient outcomes. The digital pill system allows patients to take control of their health in a tangible, quantifiable way through the confirmation of their medication ingestions and the feedback loop to collaborate with care teams.
The ID-Cap System also gives clinicians the ability to log, track, and trend ingestion data remotely, allowing for a new level of data analytics. The technology allows clinical trials to run more quickly and efficiently, as clinicians can remotely monitor patients with the ID-Cap System, eliminating the need for patients to travel for monitoring. In one recent clinical study at the Fenway Institute at Fenway Health in Boston, the ID-Cap System successfully recorded medication ingestions on 98% of occasions when used properly. Overall, the ID-Cap System has recorded more than 6,000 ingestions across 15 institutional review board clinical research studies.
Patient Connect
AiCure
Maura LoPresti
Director, Campaigns
AiCure
maura.lopresti@aicure.com
Launched in April 2021, AiCure’s latest release of its patient engagement application, Patient Connect, allows sites to monitor and analyze patient dosing behavior for drug administration beyond pills, including inhalers, eye drops, injections, patches, disposables, and more. The new application’s intuitive design also improves ease-of-use for patients, helping to keep them engaged in their care.
High-quality data is critical to any clinical trial’s success, and reliable data starts with proper medication adherence. Using computer vision and AI, Patient Connect allows sites to analyze video and audio data and directly observe patients taking their medication through their smartphone camera, detecting if a patient is not taking their medications and intervening to provide guidance if needed. The solution helps sponsors engage with patients in between trial visits, via technology they already have, to guide them through complex drug administration and to ensure they always have the support they need.
In many cases, patients are asked to administer drugs in a manner that is new to them. Patient Connect’s latest enhancements provide more expansive functionality to support new routes of administration, helping train patients especially when asked to self-administer drugs in a manner that is unfamiliar to them. By making its technology adaptable to new realms of dosing and research, AiCure’s Patient Connect aims to support compliance, helping sites elevate the integrity of trial data as well as provide patients with the necessary training to be successful and safely dose.
The Adhere Platform
AdhereHealth
Deidra Colvin
EVP, Revenue Marketing
AdhereHealth
deidra.colvin@adherehealth.com
In May 2021, AdhereHealth, a healthcare technology leader in medication adherence insights and health outcomes, debuted its next-generation Resolve offering. Anchored within the Adhere Platform, Resolve’s robust new capabilities expand the solution’s focus to include all Medicare Advantage (MA) membership likely to have a poor patient experience, as reflected in Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) and Health Outcomes Survey (HOS) scores.
Using proprietary data analytics, intelligent clinical workflow, available health plan benefits, and local community social service software integration, Resolve enables MA plans to dramatically improve patient experience. The CRM connects patients directly to pharmacy solutions (such as Aunt Bertha) to overcome social determinants of health (SDOH), coordinates care among the patient’s entire care team, and provides a data-driven intelligent clinical workflow that guides users to the “next best action” based on clinical engagement inputs and behavioral coaching techniques to get to the root of each patient’s nonadherence. The updated capabilities support CMS’ dramatic increase in the weighting of CAHPS member experience surveys, which now represent 32% of the overall Star Rating score—making them among the most significant contributors to quality performance. CAHPS surveys ask beneficiaries about their experience getting needed care, quality of communication from providers, and understanding of prescription medication.
Resolve is the only patient-centric solution that addresses over 80% of MA Star Ratings through medication adherence, quality improvement, and patient experience. The solution drives value-based revenue reimbursements and medical cost avoidance for health payers. Today, the Adhere Platform touches nearly 30 million patients through its disruptive technologies, engagement services, and integrated home-delivered digital pharmacy solutions.
FebriSol
Studio Fundi Ltd
Ricky Stoch
Founder
Studio Fundi Ltd
ricky@studiofundi.com
Of the 37.9 million people living with HIV globally, 20% reside in South Africa. A major factor impeding the management and control of HIV is poor adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART). For HIV+ patients (and those with chronic conditions) it is difficult to remember to take medication daily, especially when a condition requires lifelong treatment.
FebriSol uses inexpensive and accessible scratch card technology to help patients track their daily medication. Designed in the form of a sticker that is easily applied to any medical packaging, the adherence system offers a low-cost alternative to expensive blister packaging traditionally used to track daily medications. Created by a South African design consultancy specializing in human-centered design’s application in healthcare, FebriSol is grounded in behavioral science.
According to behavioral economic theory, a cue, action, and reward are necessary to create a habit. Using FebriSol, the patient sees their medication (the cue), takes their pill and scratches off the day’s metallic coating (the action), and is rewarded by revealing a checkmark, which provides positive reinforcement (the reward). Additionally, patients can easily see whether they have taken their medication on any given day.
While FebriSol was originally designed to increase adherence to ART in the developing world, it can also be used to increase adherence for treatments of tuberculosis, congestive heart failure, hypertension, mental health, diabetes, and many more chronic conditions.
Since its introduction in 2020, patients report positive results, and the product has been commended for its simplicity, cost effectiveness, and easy implementation. FebriSol is currently being piloted in South Africa and is scheduled to arrive in the U.S. this fall as part of new medication launch.
AnyMed
Quio
Shelby Foote, PhD
Head of Behavioral Science
Quio
shelby.foote@quio.com
AnyMed is a simple and affordable medication tracker that unlocks adherence monitoring at scale. Manual tracking is too burdensome for patients, leading to high churn and low satisfaction. Connected pill bottles, inhalers, and pens are more convenient with automated dose logging. However, they’re too expensive, especially for only tracking one medication. AnyMed generates the same quality data as other connected medication devices, but with the affordability and flexibility of manual tracking.
The AnyMed device automatically tracks any and all medications stored inside, including pills, inhalers, and injectables. Every time the patient opens the lid to access their medications, the device generates an event that is transformed into dose events based on the schedules of the medications inside. It costs 90% less than traditional medication tracking devices, making it affordable enough to give to any patient. Other key features include:
- 2+ year lifespan
- No batteries or charging required
- No user interface to translate or learn
- No Bluetooth pairing required (BLE beacon technology)
AnyMed launched in June 2021 and is available in two versions to start. The standard version is a general device that patients can use to store any form of medication, including pill bottles, inhalers, and pens. The second version is a pill organizer that comes with seven daily compartments to store all of a patient’s pills for the week. Both versions have completed user studies with extremely positive results.
Custom-Built Patient Interactive Experience
AbelsonTaylor
Erica Rivera
Vice President, Director of Engagement Strategy
AbelsonTaylor
erica.rivera@abelsontaylor.com
AbelsonTaylor moves behaviors and builds adherence by developing custom-fit branding solutions for patients and physicians. Rather than designing the next widget, app, skill, or chatbot, the company digs deeply into the data on the target audience to explore the synthesis between mindsets, messages, and experiences.
For example, data on treatments for a rare disease showed that patients tended to believe they were on the best therapy available, even if they were not. Their language and behavior revealed that this led them to set expectations that were misaligned with the true efficacy of various medications.
To address this, AbelsonTaylor designed a one-on-one interactive experience in the space where patients taught other patients to advocate for themselves. We tapped their natural community-coaching desire and flipped it to self-assessment. This engagement strategy allowed patients to evaluate and more accurately inform their personal assumptions and behaviors in an environment that felt private and unbranded.
Aside from the client brand engaging a full 10% of total patients in six months and becoming the leader for prophylaxis in its space, this rare disease program has had longer legs than expected. Originally envisioned as a one-year program, it has now passed its second year as an active campaign. AbelsonTaylor continues to refine the experience and reach further into the patient pool with more current, relatable reasons to self-assess, based on the company’s understanding of how the audience is evolving.