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People are complex beings – that’s why we need to use many methods to get people to take their prescription meds consistently. Smart bottles to alert physicians and patients, text messages, phone call reminders. Next IT’s healthcare channel is developing an even more interactive approach to medication adherence. It is applying artificial intelligence to the problem of how to reduce that troubling statistic that 40 percent of medications for chronic conditions are not taken. It talks to patients in the hopes of generating a conversation not only about a missed dosage but also how they’re feeling.
It wants its Alme Health Coach to take a patient-driven approach. Although the service may be triggered by missed doses or as a sleep alarm, the developers want it to have a conversation with users that goes beyond a yes or no Q&A to generate insights behind what’s motivating patients’ behavior such as depression, financial concerns or side effects. In a phone interview with Next IT Corp Founder and CEO Fred Brown and CMO Dr Thomas Morrow, who joined the company earlier this year from Genentech, they talked about how Alme works and how they are refining it.
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Although Next IT has been around for quite a few years, it is a relatively new arrival to healthcare. Brown said it has developed 33 “virtual assistants” to guide and better understand the problems consumers grapple with across banking, retail and money management. Part of the AI component involves repeating what users say to verify and clarify thoughts that are transmitted back and forth by users.
The form Alme Health Coach’s patient engagement takes can be a reminder that pops up on a phone and triggers a conversation like why didn’t they take their last few doses or users can leave the app running in the background to wake them up. “Sleep is important to manage chronic disease. It asks users how they slept. Each launch point is a different goal in the conversation,” Morrow said.
There are things about a person’s condition and the effects of their medication that are unique to each drug. Healthy lifestyle, maintaining or losing weight, eating right are each very important for maintaining health in reference to chronic disease, Morrow noted. The health coach is designed to be configured for specific diseases, medications and treatments.
He added: “We want to get important actionable data and inform the doctor (providing the patient agrees they can share data). How do we get people to follow the best medical evidence outside of their doctors’ appointments? You have to give them medications they can afford and you have to remind them, too. Diabetes will bankrupt this country …we need to give people actionable information they can use. We want to use motivation and education to [improve adherence]. If you give people enough information to avoid side effects, they will follow it.”
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The conversation between Alme and users can vary. The app asks patients if they have questions or if they have anything to say. It uses trivia, jokes and poetry to stimulate users attention and encourage the kind of interaction where users feel they are talking to another person. Although like many apps it reinforces positive behavior by pointing out how long people have taken their medication on time, Brown and Morrow hope patients will tell the app how they feel. It is also designed to provide advice to patients on how to manage their mood, diet and exercise.
It is developing a way to integrate Alme into electronic health records as a clinical decision support tool, but that’s a longterm plan, according to Brown.
Although the company is tight lipped about which health systems and pharma companies are testing the app, integrated health systems and specialty pharma companies dominate. “They have really liked the humanistic side of it,” Brown said. “It’s empathy engagement — treating patients as real people. This has been some of the proudest work we have done.”
