Human-Centered Design of a Personal Medication Assistant - Putting Polypharmacy Management into Patient’s Hand!

Over the past years, the importance of home-care treatments have been emphasized by governments, promoting the adoption of self-care management models, which may have positive effects on patient’s empowerment and on the overall healthcare system. In this context, polypharmacy management represents a major concern. A growing number of people are suffering from multiple chronic health conditions, which especially complicate the (self-) management of prescribed therapies, and puts a significant burden on patients’ lives. To alleviate that burden, we have developed a mobile health application, Sedato, following a thorough usability engineering process. Usability principles and guidelines have been applied to design a mobile application, which helps patient assume drugs timely and safely. Besides a reliable notification system, a continuous monitoring activity is performed to keep record of patient’s compliance to prescribed therapies. That information is shared in the context of a patient-centered digital health ecosystem, and is processed to produce knowledge relevant to the underlying territory.