You probably know someone who, because of an illness, has to take various medications at different times of the day: some without food, others before or after meals. This can quickly become overwhelming. Experts believe that the risk of taking the wrong medication increases significantly when three or four different medications are involved.
Picture: Innovation 6 AG
Around 2.2 million people in Switzerland regularly take medication. Around 800,000 of them do not take it as their doctor prescribes, thus failing to adhere to medical instructions. This leads to unnecessary healthcare costs due to consequential adverse effects, such as antibiotic resistance. Furthermore, incorrectly taken medication makes treatment less successful than it could be. Sven Beichler, founder and CEO of Innovation 6, wanted to do something about this problem and developed the TOM Medication App (TOM for short). This digital medication coach helps users of the app to adhere to their treatment.
TOM is not specialised in any particular clinical pictures or any specific medication plan. The app can be configured according to patients’ individual needs. “Pain management,” as Sven Beichler points out, “places completely different demands on a digital coach, compared to, for example, medication for high blood pressure or adult-onset diabetes.”
Users record their medications in the integrated digital medication plan eMediplan either manually or using a QR code. In the latter case, the app knows, when and how the person being treated needs to take each of their medications, be it at a certain time, or before or after meals. If necessary, the app can also remind users to take their medication. Other elements of treatment can also be incorporated, such as reminders to drink water, or to measure blood sugar levels or blood pressure. This makes the app not only a coach, but also a health log that, if used properly, gives the medical staff responsible for treatment detailed insight into the vital signs of their patient. In addition, the app enables the creation of virtual medication cabinets. The app uses pack sizes to determine which medication needs to be replenished and when.
TOM does not collect any personal data. As the data is therefore already anonymous, there is no need for it to be anonymised when storing it on servers, and Innovation 6 does not have to address any issues regarding how to go about anonymising it. Nevertheless, TOM takes cybersecurity very seriously.
Although no personal data is gathered, the medication data is useful for pharmacological studies. TOM has so far collected around one billion data points, generating valuable insight for scientific studies. Moreover, TOM offers healthcare providers the option of running patient surveys on the app. By using the medication data, these surveys can be very precisely tailored to specific target groups.
TOM’s developers follow the principle of developing the app in line with users’ wishes. If at least one hundred people want a certain new feature, it will be implemented. If a hundred people complain about a certain function, it will be changed. This is so that the app corresponds as closely as possible to the needs of its users but still pursues the clear vision of improving treatment compliance that is needed across society.
