Medication nonadherence is a critical healthcare issue according to global IoT connectivity provider Soracom and its customer PatchRx. Figures show that one-quarter of all hospitalisations in the U.S. can be attributed to people not taking their medicine.
PatchRx is aiming to solve the problem of medication nonadherence with a smart pill bottle cap and platform. The smart cap keeps patients on track with their medication and keeps their providers aware. PatchRx has said that 75% of patients in the United States do not take medicine as prescribed.
The company says that since medication nonadherence affects people from all walks of life, the PatchRx Smart Pill Bottle Cap, named the ‘PatchCap’ must be universally accessible, and even transmit data from remote or rural locations. It does this through the Internet of Things.
How PatchCap works
The PatchCap is a peel-and-stick device that adheres to the underside of any pill bottle cap and tracks when patients take their medication. The device is paired with a plug-in gateway that tracks all the collected data to generate a comprehensive review of each patient’s medication history, identify and monitor trends in usage, and share the information with the appropriate caregivers.
Soracom’s role in the device involves providing PatchRx with secure, uninterrupted, consistent and reliable cellular coverage to the company’s customers. This includes the ability to transfer data effectively, and to move between connectivity networks as needed.
PatchRx reports that 54% of patients using PatchRx for more than 6 months have shown improvements in consistency of their medication routine.
When designing the solution, the PatchRx team recognised that it would have to fit into users’ everyday routines. Securing the reliability and integrity of any data would also be crucial as medical data is among the most sought-after personal data by ‘bad actors’ according to the company.
PatchRx briefly attempted to function as a smartphone app, but technical limitations and limited user engagement prevented the solution from having the desired impact.
In a case study on the Soracom website, Andrew Aertker, CEO and Co-Founder of PatchRx said: “We found that patients really don’t want another app or widget on their phone. People typically don’t like to change their usual routine.”
The Internet of Things
The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to the collective network of connected devices that facilitates communication between the devices and the cloud, and between the devices themselves. Examples of IoT devices includes smart thermostats, kitchen appliances, fitness-tracking watches, self-driving cars, home security systems, and personal medical devices such as pacemakers. While smartphones, tablets, or laptops use connectivity to access the internet, they are however not typically considered as IoT devices.
Kenta Yasukawa, CTO and Co-Founder of Soracom told MTI: “There are probably many people that think of IoT in a different way. To me, the term Internet of Things is always about connecting everything and everywhere, and everyone gets the events and data coming from them to create an organic cohesion and collaboration to make the world a better place.
IoT is key to how the PatchCap device addresses medication nonadherence for its users. Yasukawa told MTI: “It [IoT] is not just about sending data to the internet, it’s more about making interactions among things and people to build a better world. That’s why we are excited to support PatchRx and what they are doing.”
IoT is used in all types of industry verticals, as well as consumer markets, with the consumer segment making up around 60% of all IoT or connected devices in 2023 according to Statista.
BeeHero
Yasukawa spoke to MTI about the use of IoT in other industries, mentioning its customer BeeHero, a leading provider of pollination services. The company tracks and monitors bee activity in crops to deliver better data for quantifiable pollination. Yasukawa said: “They have a sensor connected to beehives. They collect data from the sound and temperature and the vibrations. That is used to navigate the bee farmers to take care of those bees. For the food chain, bees are so important, and they are helping to have more healthy bees.”
Yasukawa added: “There are many use cases that we are helping, and healthcare is definitely one of them. Remote patient care is also a growing area.”
The Collaboration
PatchRx was exploring different solutions for its PatchCap device, such as LPWAN and several other radio networks according to Yasukawa. LPWAN’s are wireless networks that connect battery-powered devices over long distances. Yasukawa told MTI that cities and dense areas are covered by existing LPWAN networks, as well as having several other options. However, when there is the need to cover everywhere, cellular connectivity is needed.
When PatchRx realised it needed cellular connectivity to make PatchCap work, it found Soracom. Yasukawa says PatchRx was drawn to the company offering cellular connectivity that works worldwide. Soracom also provides multi-carrier connectivity. This means when one carrier doesn’t have coverage in a certain area, the module devices can switch back to another network automatically and have the cloud backend.
PatchRx CEO Aertker added in the case study: “One of the biggest hurdles we had to overcome in developing a truly universal product was the lack of reliable cellular connectivity in many rural areas. We wanted to make sure that any patient could take our technology home, regardless of their zip code.”
IoT’s role in the future of healthcare
Yasukawa spoke to MTI about the role that IoT will play in in healthcare in the future: “In the case of healthcare, there are so many things that the technology can still transform. The remote patient care is one of the fields that is growing, because not everyone is living closely with their caretakers or hospitals or other care facilities. By using technology, you can do things like video chat. And that’s just the beginning of the transformation of the industry. By using these connected devices, you can collect patient data in real time. In case something happens with a patient, the doctors or nurses can get notified. Even if you are not in the hospital and you are at home.
“That can change a lot of things, you can save more patients, and you can be healthier by having some guidelines and instructions from doctors and nurses constantly without having to visit the hospital or the doctor’s office all the time.”
Remote Care Partners
One of Soracom’s other partners, Remote Care Partners, is using IoT for a similar device to PatchRx. The company’s RCP Smart Hub coordinates and delivers data from multiple devices, such as a smart scale, pulse oximeter, or glucose monitor.
The device connects automatically when plugged in by the patient. This is made possible by Soracom providing multicarrier cellular connectivity, network management, eSIM capability, and secure patient access for maintenance and troubleshooting.
Remote Care Partners uses Soracom Napter, which provides on-demand remote device access, no relay servers or agent software, and no fixed public IP address.
Yasukawa added: “They have a similar type of gateway device that has our cellular connectivity built in. They use this gateway to collect data from wearable devices, such as smart watches and other bluetooth connected devices. They send data to the cloud so that they can provide data to Doctors and Nurses and remotely look at the patient data.
“And of course, in the case of healthcare, security is one of the top concerns. In IoT, security is the top concern. So its not just about connecting devices to the cloud, or to the internet, its important to make sure that the cloud side, the back end, and all these devices are securely connected, so no malicious workers can tap into the network or attack the backend.
“We have the technology to make that happen. That’s why, in addition to multi-carrier connectivity, customers choose us to build a secure backend.
Artificial Intelligence and IoT
Yasukawa was asked about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its constantly evolving nature, and how it can affect IoT. The CTO said that although it has gained a lot of hype around it recently, and it has become a buzzword, Soracom has been thinking about it for a long time.
Yasukawa said: “I was a researcher at Ericsson when I started my professional career. I was working on connected car, connected home type of projects. One thing I was always wondering was, you could build a pretty good demo for IoT. You can collect data and send the signals to actuate.
“In reality, what is more challenging is how to make a decision based on data, and make a sophisticated action by taking those events into account. Thats what I was thinking about, and with the rise of AI in 2023, we thought this is it. This is actually the thing that’s going to make the IoT happen, finally.
“We started to do some initiatives. For example we worked with Mitsubishi Electronics. They have a big share in HVAC systems. What they did was collect data from temperature sensors and humidity sensors, and put the data into an instruction prompt. They asked the AI ‘Hey AI, we have all this data, how should we configure these HVAC systems? And the AI answered saying which air conditioners should be set to which temperature. That setting was applied to the HVAC systems and they found they could save electricity even 48% compared to constant settings.
“We are actually now doing a lot of similar projects with our customers and applying AI to IoT use cases. We have some new features that we launched that integrates AI.”