Older patients often forget to take their medicines on time and without a caregiver around might miss their doses frequently.
A new innovative project aims to tackle this issue and has launched “smart” medicine boxes to remind older patients to take their medicine.
Created by digital medicines company CONNECT Care, the boxes ‘flicker and buzz’ when it is time to take a dose. They can even text a family member if doses are repeatedly missed.
Oxfordshire County Council's Innovation Hub and its adult social care team wanted to improve health outcomes for patients leaving the hospital and these boxes help do just that.
The process involves the patient getting an initial face-to-face appointment when discharged and a ‘personalised schedule’ is created for medicine-taking. The smart medicine box is handed over to the patient which provides him/her with regular alerts when it is time for a dose. A weekly report is also made from the data, available to carers and family members, flagging any concerns.
The current initiative is now rolling out the smart boxes to about 50 adult social care patients, backed by a £1m grant from Innovate UK. It provides a “blueprint which could be scaled to support patients across the UK to manage their medicines safely and independently".
The hope is that the technology will "give patients greater confidence to get better in their homes, freeing up hospital space for those who need it most, and allowing our residents to recover where they feel most comfortable".
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