Anna Wilde Mathews, WSJ Mar 2, 2010, says most of the medicine prescribed for chronic conditions doesn’t work—because people forget to take it.
Now, the pharmco biggie Express Scripts has a bottle that lets you know when to take your meds.
You plug the wireless transmitter into the wall and it makes the pill bottle blink and later emit a beep every five minutes with increasing annoyance.
After that, it really gets going—sending a telephone or text message to you.
THEN, it can also email the doctor—Star didn’t take her medicine.
OMG, I would smash the thing flat in a second.
Novartis takes a different approach—it puts a tiny chip on the pill that sends a message to the person and anywhere else designated. (Wouldn’t the patient already know?)Is filling up people's insides with transmitters a great idea? I wonder.
Another system, from Leap of Faith Technologies, issues phone reminders if the patient scans a bar code ordering these.
Still other companies scan pharmaceutical records to see if people are renewing their meds often enough.
I am so sure doctors want a bunch of emails or calls tattling on patients. They hardly pay attention to us now.
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