Virtually Observed Therapy (VOT)
These are companies that are utilizing proprietary facial recognization technology to determine if a patient swallowed their medication. Similar to VOT used in certain clinical situations such as for public health projects for infectious disease (e.g., tuberculosis) or in a psychiatric unit whereby a nurse or similar health professional administers and documents that a patient took their medication, but now instead of a person actually watching, the smartphone camera serves as an intermediary. The benefits to such platforms include reduced overhead for requiring health team members watch and document, and scalability to allow VOT to occur in any setting, easing the burden of logistics for the patient and health facilities involved. Other terms adopted include Digitally Observed Therapy (DOT) and video directly observed therapy (VDOT).
AiCure
New York based Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform targeted towards capturing when a patient takes their medications focused on clinical trials and population health therapeutic areas. The platform integrates HIPAA-compliant facial recognition and medication identification to tag a patient to drug when taken. What is really interesting about the platform is that it can detect when a patient swallows the medication (such as instances where a patient may ‘park’ or ‘hide’ a drug in their mouth for later consumption or disposal during DOT), which is a really cool feature. The data is then uploaded and can be analyzed as needed, and the video of the patient taking the medication does not need an in-between step of being reviewed due to their proprietary technology. Another item to note, most of their preliminary research focused on proving their technology has included pharmakinetic studies tying together presence of drugs in the body and the tracked adherence on their platform. Most of their initial research has included ID or anticoagulation therapy at this time.
Research Data:
Please visit their site. This company hosts a page dedicated towards their published literature.
In-Progress based on ClinicalTrials.gov
Emocha Mobile Health
Boston based start-up with a focus on medication adherence in population health areas (e.g., ID, opioids). The system includes a HIPAA-compliant mobile app that captures video recording of a patient when they take their medication. The video subsequently needs to be reviewed to confirm that a patient took their medication. Communication is controlled through the app with nudges delivered via HIPAA secure messages alerting the patient to take their medication. Interesting feature of the app is patients can record side effects of the drug as well.
Research Data:
No peer-reviewed literature or in-process studies found.
Case studies listed on company website.
sureAdhere
San Diego based start up focused on tracking medication adherence for population health conditions. Noted for supporting the National Health Service (NHS) Find & Treat Tuberculosis (TB)-control program (Oct, 2017). Their platform in includes patients recording themselves taking their medication, whereupon after being uploaded to a server it is reviewed by a health care provider who then documents their compliance. The platform integrates SMS and email notifications to alert patients of missed doses, and reports can then be generated by a provider to review their adherence records. Overall, most of their research and clinical areas are focused on TB, Opioid Substitution Therapy (OST), HIV PrEP, and Hep C.
Research Data:
Company lists a number of studies involving their platform on their website.