Would you pay for SMS health care reminders?

A new study in Obstetrics & Gynecology finds that women using a smart pill dispenser that alerted them when they forgot to take their birth control pill were just as likely to forget to pop the pills as those who didn't use the device.  Both the control group and the reminder group missed, on average, five pills a month. This study seems to fly in the face of several mhealth initiatives banking on the assertion that mobile-reminders have potential to enhance health, or at least the efficiency of health care delivery

Like many mhealth studies, somewhat small sample size (82 women) means this is by no means the final statement of efficacy on the health care applications of this technology. But the study still highlights some interesting points.

First, the smart pill dispenser is an amazing little device. Called SIMpill, it can remind you to take your medication, or track compliance, and even alert a loved one or health care practitioner if you miss a certain number of doses. Each time you open the device or dispense a pill, it sends a text message to a central processor that logs and tracks the access. As long as you continue to access the meds with the predetermined frequency you've set up with the tracking system, no messages are sent. But once you miss a dose, a reminder can be sent via SMS text. If you like, it'll even send a follow up reminder if you still don't take your pills. The potential health care applications of this device for those prone to forgetting their meds, or for whom even a single missed pill could spell disaster, is clear.

A second point of interest is that 20 of the 35 women who used the smart pill dispenser (which apparently didn't help them remember to take their pills) said they'd be willing to pay up to $5 a month for the service. While we all expect to pay for health care, in a world where we increasingly us free informational and communications services, willingness to pay is encouraging for product developers. Women using the SIMpill service felt that receiving pages, cell pone alarms, and regular information about the consequences of missed doses would increase their compliance.

Complicating this analysis was the fact that 68% of women in the control group also used some other form of reminder (alarm clock, cell phone reminder). So perhaps a better interpretation of this study is that texted reminders work as well (or as badly) as other ad-hoc reminders that women turn to in their daily lives.