1. The MedDispenser Improving Medication Compliance for the Elderly Group: Ashley Hammann Darnita Mims Connie Saelzler Annie Suarez Advisor: Richard Fries, Datex Ohmeda

2. The Elderly and Medication Regime Adherence When a patient is asked to take a medication 3 or more times a day, less than 50% of patients can comply with those instructions. The more medications added to a patient’s therapy, the lower the chance of a patient taking all the medications correctly.

3. Need for a Device In order to improve the efficacy of medication regimes, medication must be taken:  At the correct times  In the correct dosages  According to pharmacist advice Therefore, a medication dispenser with the ability to ensure medication is taken correctly is needed.

4. Purpose The MedDispenser will:  Dispense the correct medications at the correct time in the correct dosages  In order to avoid over- dosages, forgetfulness, and drug side effects from incorrectly following pharmacist’s and doctor’s directions

5. Proposed Design  Each medication will be distributed into separate slots of a container  The prescription definition will be saved in the device’s memory  The correct medication and dosage will be dispensed at the correct time  Each prescription type will be allotted a separate level in the tower

6. E-Pill Med-Time Dispencer  Dispenses medication up to 4 times per day  Lockable and tamperproof  Expensive: $249.00

7. E-Pill MD.2  Dispenses medicine up to 6 times per day  Calls the caregiver automatically if meds are low or not taken  Not Portable  Expensive: $799.00 + $29.95/month

8. E-Pill CompuMed  Automatically dispenses up to 4 times / day  Skipped doses accumulate  Expensive: $895.00

9. Automatic Vitamin & Pill Organizer  Holds up to 28 doses  $69.95  Comes with Alarm and the ability to schedule the time  By Sharper Image

10. Disadvantages of Present Medicine Dispensers  Expensive  Not able to accommodate a month’s worth of multiple daily doses  Some not portable  Skipped doses accumulate  Have to be refilled daily, weekly or bi- weekly

11. Current Patents  Currently there are many patents out for an automatic medicine dispenser dating as far as back as 1977  Our design would be different enough not to infringe on an existing patents  Examples

12. Past Work  Creation and distribution of a Potential Customer Survey  Creation and distribution of a Health Care Provider Survey  Meeting with Philip E. Johnston, Pharm. D. at the Department of Pharmaceutical Services at VUH  Collection of both surveys

13. Current Work  Compilation of Data from surveys  Further research into more concrete design specifications  Researching patents  Researching competitors  Working on Innovation Workbench design  Design specifications defined

14. Future Work  Computer model including user interface  A critique by healthcare providers  An actual prototype of the device