RemindRx

I wanted to dedicate my master's Thesis project toward something impactful and meaningful for others. I explored areas that combined my passion for public health with other interests such as community building, accessibility, and gardening. I dove deeper into the areas of medication adherence, vaccine accessibility, and community building with plants.

The topic of medication adherence showed a large need when I looked at the plethora of products offered to support medication management, but research showed that nonadherence can account for up to 50% of treatment failures, around 125,000 deaths, and up to 25% of hospitalizations each year in the United States [1]. I was also excited to choose a topic that would allow me to develop product design skills. 

I needed to learn more about what barriers people faced that resulted in low adherence rates. Diving into the themes I had found in my research (such as managing multiple prescriptions, short-term medications, travelling, irregular schedules), I launched a survey to draw out specific pain points people were experiencing.

The questions asked about quantity and form of medications taken, how frequently they needed to be taken, and the regularity with which people followed their medication schedules. To understand the use cases in which a solution product may be used, I included questions about frequency of supplement and over-the-counter medication usage, any challenges that arose during travelling, and whether responders provided or received any caregiving around managing medications. 

My survey reached over 150 participants with a wide range of demographics. The responses revealed trends in irregular schedules resulting in missed doses and being on-the-go exacerbating challenges with remembering to take medications.

To learn more about the specific medication regimens and environments in which people needed to manage their medications, I conducted interviews with 10 of the survey participants who indicated they had challenges adhering to their medications, choosing those who indicated irregular schedules or being away from home played a role in their low adherence. I spoke to them about their routines, medication organization tools, and I began focusing on what was happening when they missed a dose of a medication and what tools they had tried to use to aid their medication management.

The feedback I received in the interviews showed commonalities between the users around difficulty remembering to prepare medications to bring on-the-go, not having adequate medication storage solutions, feeling embarrassment when needing to take medications in public, and not being able to remember if a dose was taken or not. These themes led me to develop the following insights:

With the understanding that my solution needed to support people in remembering to take their medication with them on-the-go, take it discreetly, and prompt them to take it on time in a wide range of environments, I set out brainstorming product concepts. 

One of the ways I stimulated ideation was utilization of the grid method, which combines a form of medication with a given scenario to stimulate imagining concepts that would allow someone to successfully take their medication in that situation. 

I conducted co-design sessions with participants recruited from the Northwestern area (via posters). It was important to recruit locally so that the sessions could be held in person, as they focused on developing the form and function of the design through interaction with the prototypes and analogous objects. 

During the sessions, I asked the participants about their routines and requirements for taking their medications. Then, we dove into each of the prototypes and how each one might help them improve their adherence. Once we had explored the benefits and shortcomings of each product, we developed a "dream product" that combined the best offerings of the prototypes or any other wish list features. I brought in the ideas developed in the previous sessions with each new participant to gain feedback and iterate solutions as they were being generated.

The ideal product for most users needed to be simple to operate, look discreet (not like a pill container from the pharmacy), and provide the option for combination of haptic feedback from the device and phone notifications. The users also indicated that they were likely to "X" out of reminders from their phone when it alerted them to take their medicine, so I realized the product would need to provide follow-up reminders until the medication was actually taken.

With the product requirements understood, I was able to iterate on the concepts developed during the co-design sessions. To concepts explored during the co-design sessions were a doorframe sensor (similar to a retail store's security sensors) that reminded users to take their medications when leaving home, and a pill container that would vibrate at a programmed time until the latch was opened. I combined the merits of these concepts with the other insights and feedback from the sessions to develop my final product.

Together, those ideas morphed into a smartphone-connected medication pod that would detect if it was left behind or empty when the user left home and provide discreet "smart" reminders that could be snoozed in decreasing time periods until the pod was detected to be emptied, among other features such as reminding users to refill their pod when they returned home.

To perfect the design of the physical component of the product, I used Solidworks and 3D printed mockups to iterate the shape and size of the three different container sizes (the mini, pocket, and combo pods) to be able to accommodate the needs of users based on the quantity and types of medication they take throughout the day. I then perfected the design of the hinges and clasp for a smooth opening experience and a "snap of security" when closing the pods. And finally, I improved the design of the divider in the ComboPod to be able to accommodate a birth control package or be fully removable.

I also built a prototype that could detect when the Pod had been filled and emptied using a time of flight sensor, which uses the amount of time required for a laser light to bounce back from the surface in front of it to measure how far it is from that surface. If the laser hit a pill in the container, it would bounce back faster than if the container was empty. At the designated time, it would vibrate to remind the user to take their medication until the sensor detected the Pod had been emptied.