#PatientSafety: Polish app helps older adults to safely execute long-term therapies

Polish family doctors prepared an app helping older adults to safely execute their long-term therapies

According to The World Health Organization at least 50% of patients do not adhere to treatment recommendations, which may lead to treatment ineffectiveness, medication side effects, lower quality of life and increased hospitalizations. 
In order to change that situation, improve safety of use of medications and tackle medication non-adherence, research team from Department of Family Medicine, Medical University of Lodz, Poland has designed an innovative mobile application which helps patients to take their drugs regularly.

The app, called ‘My health every day’ (Polish: ‘Moje zdrowie na co dzien’) helps self-monitoring of the regularity of the treatment and presents patient’s level of adherence to medication. However, the most important function of the app activates when the patient reports problems with following drug plan. In such a case, the application suggests realistic options for solving the underlying problems. Such an individualized coaching is supposed to be of great help for patients struggling with execution of their chronic therapies. Therefore, such an application is of particular use of older adults, of which a lot is accompanied with multimorbidity. 

“We are convinced that this app will empower the patients by giving them a simple tool to control their adherence to medication and receive daily feedback directly to their smartphones” – says prof. Przemyslaw Kardas, leader of the research team and the internationally recognized expert in non-adherence – “Our long-term experience in the field of non-adherence to therapeutic recommendations and polypharmacy have helped us to design the tool that can help patients regain control over their health”.

This innovative solution has been prepared under the framework of the GATEKEEPER project. This project, funded from the Horizon 2020 Program, is one of the flagship European projects aimed at the large-scale implementation of digital solutions, especially artificial intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data analytics in the area of health. As many as 43 institutions from 13 European countries, active in the field of health, medical research and modern digital technologies, take part in it. The immediate goal of the Gatekeeper project is to create an open, free platform that is to become an arena for the exchange of experiences and combining various ideas, technologies, needs and processes. They all have one common goal: to improve the health performance of aging European societies. At the same time, Gatekeeper intends to introduce the next generation of healthcare innovation, including personalized solutions for health risk assessment, and enabling the earliest possible implementation of interventions that improve the effectiveness of the treatment of chronic conditions. The project partners include institutions, companies and organizations known for their innovativeness, including Medtronic, Samsung, Hewlett Packard, HL7 International Foundation, ECHAlliance, EIP on AHA. 

That the application is available free of charge, both for Android and iOS phones, at www.mojezdrowie.umed.pl

Prof. Przemyslaw Kardas MD, PhD
Head of the Department of Family Medicine
Medical University of Lodz