Sensibly, American Medical Alert Corp. (AMAC)’s press release announcing its new medication dispensing device starts by stating the huge problem of medication non-compliance. (“Medication non-compliance is becoming one of the most expensive and deadly problems in healthcare today. Hospital costs due to patient non-compliance are estimated at $8.5 billion annually. And with more than 300,000 deaths annually resulting from non-compliance…) This is a message co-incidently reinforced in a BMJ article this week by Carl May, Victor M Montori, and Frances S Mair: We need minimally disruptive medicine. (Summary only, except to subscribers.)
So how does the AMAC device improve on the other medication reminder systems available?