Adherence to treatment is a major issue in the healthcare field. Technology can help with it. There are many different systems that store medical and nonmedical information. Claim data can be very helpful, but it’s reactive in the sense that it’s historical and occurs after the medical event. Integrating formulary, cost, benefit, and EHR information can provide real-time data. Patient generated data can also be helpful in gaining real-time data (Canfield & Schelin, 2017). Platforms like Siri and Echo are being tested for interacting with patients like: “Don’t go in the fridge again, you’re blood sugar is too high”, “Remember you have a doctor appointment today”, “Did you take your medication?”, or “You have a refill due” (Kachnowski, 2017).
C-PAP machines are one of the earliest applications of smart health monitors. The possibilities are endless. A health monitor that is connected to the internet or some form of communication medium can be sent to doctors and aid in patient care. Some of the smart products currently available include wireless pill bottles that track each time the patient opens the bottle and a genetic tracking and reporting tool that is used to analyze a patient’s genome (Kachnowski, 2017). These products are a great start, but currently the patient adoption rate of these technologies is rarely greater than 5%. Lots of the wearable technologies that are available today do not collect clinical quality data. If patients aren’t adhering to medication or treatment, how can practitioners expect them to adhere to technology? We have the data, we have the platforms, but how do we get the tools to the patients and how do we get the patients to use the tools? Part of the adherence is connected to the user’s experience. It’s so important that the system is easy to use so that the user likes using it and adherence is increased (Canfield & Schelin, 2017).