Making pills (and pill boxes) smarter is a hot area right now. According to an August 2009 report conducted by the New England Healthcare Institute, failure to take all of a prescribed dosage or forgetting to take maintenance meds for chronic conditions is a costly and potentially deadly problem that affects between a third and a half of patients in the U.S.
Because skipping pills can lead to hospitalizations and more intensive treatments over time, it is estimated that completely solving this problem would save up to $290 billion annually in medical costs. In the shorter run, other studies have estimated that remote monitoring of patients with congestive heart failure, diabetes and other chronic conditions could save tens of billions in yearly hospitalization costs. Numbers like these have made health care startups a favorite of VC investors, with more than $2.2 billion in VC funding going to the health category in Q2 2009. Those investors may have a long wait for returns. The smart health adoption ecosystem is complex and slow moving; innovative technology is just the starting point and lots of very smart solutions don’t survive. Before we get to swallow them, wirelessly connected, chip-enabled smart pills will require extensive clinical trials, FDA review and approval, and a recommendation from our doctor. Proteus CEO, Andrew Thomson, has said that his company’s technology will likely take until 2012 to complete the review process and be approved for use in the U.S.
That still leaves the hundred billion dollar ecosystem question; who will pay for patients to use these smart health products? The ecosystem partners everyone wants to attract are insurance companies, HMOs and self-insured corporations. If these players don’t agree to pay the bills, it’s not likely that patients will. The high cost of traditional prescription medications is a big factor in today’s non-compliance issue. This means patients will need to rely on other types of medication reminders for the near term. Connected pill boxes and mobile applications that send text messages or display reminders on a smartphone screen are just a few of the connected smart medication compliance solutions that are already competing for attention and adoption in what will soon be a very crowded market.