Wireless Medication Management System: Design and performance evaluation

Abstract

To keep healthcare costs under control, a high-level of medication adherence, or compliance with medication regimen, must be achieved. In this paper, we show how wireless technologies can be used to improve medication adherence. More specifically, we present the design, operation, and evaluation of a wireless medication system, termed Smart Medication Management System (SMMS). We also present multiple metrics for quality of service and an analytical model for evaluating the medication adherence. The performance results show that very high medication adherence is achievable by SMMS for single and multiple medications even for patients with mild cognitive deficiency. The performance of context-aware reminders as implemented by SMMS is found to be most effective as compared to other interventions. Several powerful "composite" interventions are also proposed and evaluated for medication adherence. The results also show that with increasing hospitalization cost the healthcare savings due to improved medication adherence become even more significant. The proposed work forms the basis to provide personalized interventions to patients for improving medication adherence in multiple surroundings using wireless technologies.