Feasibility of mHealth and Near Field Communication technology based medication adherence monitoring

Poor patients´ adherence to intake of prescribed medication has been identified as a serious problem in the treatment of chronically ill patients. Technical solutions are needed to measure and - if necessary - to increase the patients´ adherence. A telemonitoring solution was developed to record a patient´s medication intake based on smart blisters and mobile phones with NFC functionality. The components allowed recording of drug type, timestamp, and dosage of pills taken. The system´s usability and technical feasibility was evaluated in the course of an application study. Over a period of 13 months 59 patients suffering from diabetes were monitored. 1,760 blisters were handed out to these patients and 14,843 takeout events were recorded and transmitted via mobile phone. Results indicate the feasibility of this concept to monitor adherence. Although the system still needs to be optimized for routine use it shows the potential for targeting the problem of poor patient adherence by NFC enabled devices.