[photo © 2009 Presto Services Inc.]
An interesting blog post came to my attention the other day. It was from the blog of the company OnTimeRX, the developer of a service that provides telephone-based reminders for people to take their medication. The blog post ( located at: http://bit.ly/kQf4F ) talked about how a person could utilize their system in conjunction with Presto to create a double reminder system, both on phone and on paper, to help with medication compliance. This is an interesting idea considering we have been told by many Presto subscribers that one of the things they use Presto for is to help their parents remember to take their meds.
One person went as far as taking digital photographs of each of his Mom's pill bottles, with the correct number of pills showing next to each of them, and then creating a PDF document that he sent to her at the proper time for her to take the meds each day. This was one of the stories that prompted us at Presto to create the PrestoConnect account manager website and it's scheduled reminder functions. Whether it's a custom made PDF attachment complete with photos of pills, or just a listing using the "To Do List" template built into the system, Presto can send a recurring reminder on an ongoing basis making it really easy for the senior to 1) not only have a reminder of what to take at the appropriate time, but 2) to have a piece of paper that can act as a logbook of what meds were taken when.
To drive home what an important topic this is, here is a snippet from an article by by Albert Werthheimer, Ph.D. that appeared in The Journal of Applied Research: “…at the very least, costs as a result of patient noncompliance are estimated at $100 billion a year and are the result of adverse outcomes such as hospitalization, development of complications, disease progression, premature disability, or death.” (full article: http://bit.ly/4c5roH ). It seems to me that someone in the government should take a look at services such as OnTimeRX and Presto as part of the effort to contain healthcare costs. Short of Presto being part of a government sponsored disease management program, at least current Presto subscribers have a tool that can provide substantive assistance to their parents in ensuring they stay healthy.
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