Author: Dan Gendro

Healthcare patients forget to take medication more often than doctors would like, causing unnecessary health complications for many. Mobile health or mhealth is a fast growing market that works with an app that monitors medications to help save lives.

Medisafe Project

Medisafe is not a household name but it may be more well-known soon. This project was created to increase rates of medication intake for those given prescriptions by doctors. With use of the mhealth technology by Medisafe, medication adherence rates have gone up to 81% globally. Statins, used to control cholesterol, have seen adherence rates of almost 85%.

The WHO or World Health Organization only projects a global rate of 50% of medications being taken on time each time. This puts the rate of Medisafe up a full thirty one percent higher. These rates bode well for not only the consumers who benefit from the medications, but also for healthcare costs in the long run as well as the bottom lines of many of the top pharmaceutical companies who sell the drugs.

How it works

The remote patient monitoring or mhealth provided by Medisafe helps reduce costs and eliminates unnecessary follow-ups. The project began in November in 2012. The pillbox app syncs up to a users cloud to report that the user indicated that they have taken the required medication. If they fail to report this, a message is sent out to caretakers and family members who can then make sure the medications are taken. It also serves as a reminder service for those that routinely forget to take medications, which is a very common occurrence.

The project CEO of Medisafe, Omri Shor, said, “Medication adherence is a persistent and elusive problem, interrupting patients’ well-being, costing health providers and insurers billions annually and causing preventable deaths.” He went on to suggest that mhealth like Medisafe is a breakthrough that can greatly cut down on the unwanted results of medication avoidance or simply forgetting.

About project Medisafe

Medisafe is the first mobile app that is a cloud-synced app to help aid in preventing medication related emergencies by giving family members and caregivers real time information about medication intake. Information gathered can be used by pharmaceutical companies to help them understand patient habits with taking or forgetting medications.

Smartphone users have a wealth of information available to them by scanning QR codes on products and in advertisements, and will now be able to make charitable donations through the same format.

QR codes to aid 6,000 charities

The start-up Paystik has launched a campaign to raise charitable donations for over 6,000 charities using the QR code as a means to make quick and easy payments when consumers wish to donate to a charity of their choosing. The goal is to use QR codes for easy payments to both charities and small businesses. Both can sign on with Paystik to produce QR codes, thus reducing problems with billing and advertising.

The result will be an app for smartphones, allowing consumers to send quick and easy payments. Project C.U.R.E. will begin a campaign this week with direct mail. Last year, this organization reached out to consumers for charitable donations over the holidays and supplied over $40 million in medical care and supplies around the world. This campaign will be aimed at merchants this year.

QR codes gaining in US

The US has been a hard sell for mainstream use of QR code for payments. Companies like Paypal, DigiMo, Qriket, and Doxo have been accepting payments through QR, though none have become a huge success in that category. It is thought that smartphone saturation in the US could see a change in that regard, with smartphone use steadily on the rise. Still, a QR code is often a hard sell in the US. Some consumers are still not sure what their purpose is and are not aware of how to use the technology.

Co-founder James Ioannidis said, “Obviously, the first time is the hardest. But after on-boarding them, we see consumers making repeat transactions.” He went on to explain that he feels aiding charities will bring Paystik success where other campaigns featuring QR code have faltered. The biggest obstacle is getting the consumer aware of the code and to also download the app.

About Paystik

The company of New Stanford is a three-person operation based in Stanford Venture Studio at the Graduate School of Business. At the present time, the company is bootstrapped, meaning they have no outside investment. Ioannidis is a former program manager with Microsoft.