MediSafe expands medication management platform to include wearables
HAIFA, ISRAEL — At Google’s I/O Developer Conference last month, MediSafe expanded its medication management platform to include wearables, becoming the first mobile health app on Google’s just-announced suite of Android Wear smartwatches, the company announced Tuesday.
Users wearing either the LG Android Wear, Samsung Gear Live or Moto 360 smartwatches, who also have the MediSafe medication management solution installed on their Android smartphone or tablet, will automatically have a MediSafe “wearable app” loaded on their Android Wear and begin receiving medication reminders on their smartwatch when it’s time to take scheduled doses.
Users have a choice to record taking doses two different ways: “Shake to Take” — where users simply rotate their wrists left-to-right; or "Swipe and Tap" — where users swipe-left on their reminder and tap once to confirm.
In either scenario, the data is seamlessly transferred to the MediSafe app on the user's smartphones and tablets via Bluetooth, where it becomes part of their full medication adherence file that they can export and email securely to their personal healthcare providers in between office visits.
“Android Wear brings MediSafe one step closer to patients — something central to our mission of connecting patients and healthcare providers for constant, two-way communication around medication management,” stated MediSafe CEO Bob Shor. “We’re thrilled to be the first wearable medication management solution, and very grateful to Google for the opportunity to expand our platform to Android Wear, allowing us to further improve patients’ health outcomes.”
MediSafe also welcomes partnerships with sensor-based wearables, which would allow it to incorporate vital health statistics, like users’ blood-glucose levels, steps taken per day and sleep patterns, with its own data for when users took their medications, plus users’ reported feelings — to give physicians a more complete picture of patients’ lives. With this data all in one place, physicians gain the ability to make more informed decisions about patients.
Today’s Android Wear integration broadens MediSafe’s existing platform, which includes branded versions for hospitals, electronic medical/health records systems and HMOs that send patients medication reminders via the web or SMS — in addition to its flagship mobile app, which was first to sync medication reminders among families’ and caregivers’ mobile devices.
MediSafe has been downloaded for free in Google Play and the iTunes App Store more than 700,000 times, reminded users to take more than 35 million doses, and been viewed by users more than 60 million times, the company noted. Its users have an average medication adherence rate of 86%, compared with the 50% average adherence figure for the general population cited by both the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control.