„Increase therapy adherence by using voice assistants like Amazon Echo (Alexa)“

Background

  • Aging population and thus increase of chronic diseases such as heart failure
  • Lack of medical care in rural regions
  • Rising cost pressure on the German health care system
  • Digitization and technical progress permeates society

Problem

  • Many elderly patients (> 70 years) living alone suffer from multiple diseases at the same time, and consequently take many medications at the same time. The so-called compliance or therapy adherence is very low in these multimorbid patients (from 4 medications the compliance drops to <50% *), which compromises the success of the treatment.
  • In the case of chronic diseases such as heart failure, continuous use of the medication is necessary. Otherwise a decompensation of the heart threatens to an acute hospital admission. This in turn causes enormous costs for the health system.
  • Current digital solutions to increase therapy adherence focus on younger patient populations (e.g. via „Apps“, etc.)

*http://www.medmix.at/polypharmazie-multimorbide-patienten/

Actual Challenge

  • Develop a smart home system that increases the therapeutic adherence of older chronic patients (Heart Failure)
  • Use smart devices such as Amazon Echo (Alexa), smart scale, etc., and search for possibilities of meaningful linking.
    (all devices will be provided by challenge owner)

Amazon, Withings and Fitbit are offering an API and Skill Kit:

https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills-kit/getting-started-guide
https://oauth.withings.com/api
https://dev.fitbit.com/

Questions:

  • How to motivate elderly alone living people to use technology/therapeutic solutions (using voice assistants) and be physically more active?
  • How do we measure adherence or quality of life for evaluation of solution success?
  • How can voice-enabled technologies support therapy success?
  • How is an optimal interaction between the devices?
Challenge owner: Michael Streit (Novartis)