Saturday, March 19, 2011

Pill bug: Startup zeroes in on patient-error market - Boston Business Journal:

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Senticare Inc.’s PillStation could prevent adverse drug avert unnecessary hospitalizations and even save if the company can find a way to make moneon it. The $100 billionn problem is the estimated annual cost to the healthn care system from patients taking theitmedications incorrectly, according to a studyt published in the Journal of Clinicalo Pharma Therapy. PillStation is aimed at chronically ill patients who have to take many medicationszper day. Patients who miss dosezs for reasons ranging from pain to depressio n may end up back in the hospital with adverse or undergocostly misdiagnosis. Senticare founder Dr.
Davied Bear said he knew of one patien t who was mistakenly diagnosed with earlystagew Alzheimer’s, when in fact she had been accidentally taking the sleep drug Ambien in the morningt instead of at night. PillStation looks like a smallwireless printer, with a small a large button marked “CALL” and a speaker. If you lift the lid, insidse you find what looks like a normal labeled for seven days per Underneath the pillbox is a scanne that photographs the pillbox and sends the imageto Senticare’xs call center in Southborough, where an adviserr checks the image against the patient’s prescriptions and the Physician’s Desk Referencr to make sure the patient is taking the right drugs at the right time.
PillStatioj is programmed witha patient’s dosing times, and will sounf a chime. Then a message turns up on thescreebn saying, “Time to take your medication.” Miss a dose and the chimese get louder and louder until the PillStation calls your doctor or a family member. Right now, there is just one call advisetr onthe 10-person staff. The company expectsz to expand to about 35 employees by the end of but that will depend on whethe r they can sellthe Currently, is running a clinical trial using PillStationb in concert with other home-monitoring devices for heart failur e patients. “So far, it’s working well.
If this we will likely purchase dozens of the machines in a few saidDoug McClure, corporatde manager of technology and operations at Partners HealthCare’zs Center for Connected Health. Senticare officials said they hope the Partnerse HealthCare clinical trial will lend national credibilith to the science behincd PillStation and that will help the compangy sellthe device. Theree is a startup fee of $99 for the system, with a monthlty subscription feeof $79. CEO Michael Staw said Senticarw launched in 2007 witha $5 milliom investment by in New Senticare remains private, has no revenud and has used approximately $3 millionn of the $5 million.
The company’s competitors include Philips Healthcare, with North American headquarterssin Andover, which has an older-generation medicationh monitoring device on the market.

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