Improving therapy adherence with smart dispenser Sensemedic

Many patients find it difficult to take their medication according to the schedule that the doctor has given to them. If the schedules for the medications are irregular, breaks are inserted or there are many different types of medication to be taken, adherence can be very challenging.

Miriam van de Loo, director of Brocacef Maatmedicatie, says in the newspaper De Stad Amersfoort: “We are talking about thirty to forty percent of the drug users. The percentage is even higher for people with long-term illnesses, up to seventy percent.”

We can find many devices in the market with the goal to improve therapy adherence. However a simple smart dispenser with an alarm that alerts patients when it is time to take their medication, is not enough: a combination of remembering the medication intake and support by healthcare professionals is needed.

Evalan has developed an IoT solution that helps those patients to adhere to their medication intake with multilateral support: Sensemedic.

Sensemedic was developed in cooperation with AstraZeneca. It is a smart medicine box with different compartments filled depending on the treatment and it works independently. The patient only needs to take the medication without having to connect the dispenser to a telephone or an app. The sensor detects when a medicine is removed or added to the dispenser, in this way it can be accurately determined whether the patient complies to the medication schedule prescribed by the doctor. Finally, healthcare professionals can view the data so the patient can be guided and supported in a more targeted way.

Furthermore, a text message will be sent to the patient when intake is forgotten. Based on the real-time measurement data, the text message is automatically sent within one hour of the elapsed intake time.