Healthcare firm AdhereTech has partnered with Intelligent Product Solutions (IPS) to create an improved version of AdhereTech’s smart pill bottle. The bottle notifies patients when they have forgotten to take their medication. (Image: IPS)
Taking medications can be difficult to remember, causing some to skip dosages that are vital to their well-being. A solution to the issue has come in the form of a “smart” pill bottle.
AdhereTech’s IoT-empowered pill bottle can let a patient or their caregiver know they skipped a dosage via a text message, by illuminating the bottle with lights, or by playing a song. The smart pill bottle has been given to thousands of patients, improving their medication regimen obedience by 20 percent, according to IPS.
AdhereTech wanted to make an even better smart bottle, so it tapped Intelligent Product Solutions (IPS) its product design partner. Together, the two have worked to create a smart bottle that is easier to manufacture, easier to use, and more visually pleasing than its predecessor.
“We selected IPS as our product design partner because of its full range of product design expertise, and in particular, its expertise in designing wireless products –our product [is] essentially a pill bottle with the insides of a cell phone,” AdhereTech CEO Josh Stein said in press release from IPS. “IPS helped us to design and build the second generation product, which works globally and can be manufactured at scale. IPS also helped us improve the look and feel of the device, battery life and durability.”
The smart pill bottle needs to have power throughout the period between prescription refills. To ensure that the power wouldn’t cut out before the next pharmacy trip, IPS made the bottle efficient enough to last for six months without recharging. The company also made sure that the bottle’s design would stand up to Federal Communication Commission (FCC) standards.
“With the AdhereTech pill bottle, we designed a patient-friendly bottle that is packed with dense electronics, while working with such ease that it doesn’t require the patient to connect to Internet, plug it in to charge it, or download any software – all of that is done automatically,” said Mitch Maiman, president of IPS.
Josh Stein said that AdhereTech will create more than 10,000 of the upgraded smart pill bottles in 2016.
Filed Under: M2M (machine to machine)
