A major challenge in public health is that people do not take their medications, a phenomenon known as ‘medication non-adherence.’ In the U.S. alone, it is estimated that this accounts for 10% of all hospital visits and costs the U.S. healthcare system $100 billion per year and $60 billion to the pharmaceutical industry. Now, a MIT research team thinks it has a solution to this problem and that it also will save lives worldwide. They’ve developed the uBox, a convenient, palm-sized, intelligent pill dispenser, ‘which reminds a patient when it is time to take his medication, records when a patient has taken a dose, and prevents a patient from double-dosing.’ The first large scale trial with 100 uBoxes is scheduled to begin in May 2008 in Bihar, India. The uBox will be used in a 6-month long tuberculosis (TB) treatment program. But read more…
A major challenge in public health is that people do not take their medications, a phenomenon known as ‘medication non-adherence.’ In the U.S. alone, it is estimated that this accounts for 10% of all hospital visits and costs the U.S. healthcare system $100 billion per year and $60 billion to the pharmaceutical industry. Now, a [...]
