Rebecca Bartlett Ellis

Management of Medications and Adherence in People with Multiple Chronic Conditions

Taking medications as prescribed is challenging and remains a considerable barrier to people with chronic conditions realizing the full health benefits of prescribed treatments. Not adhering to a prescribed medication regimen involves missing doses, taking medications too early or late, or missing several days' doses. Many reasons can explain this nonadherence, but not developing reliable routine habits that ensure medications are taken and at the right time(taking and timing adherence) remains a significant barrier. Even minor deviations in dosing adherence can affect patient outcomes and may lead to erroneous conclusions about treatment efficacy, thus precipitating potentially unnecessary prescription changes (e.g. dose escalation, addition of medications, switching medications).

Dr. Rebecca Bartlett Ellis and her transdisciplinary team have developed a smart pillbox, known as InterACT Pillbox (patent pending), with embedded sensors that track medication-taking behaviors and provide feedback directly to users via their smart phone. The novelty of InterACT Pillbox lies in the integration of technology with widely used traditional pillboxes to provide continuous feedback to patients on how well they are taking medications as prescribed. InterACT Pillbox was co-designed with input from patients and is being used in intervention work to improve medication taking.

Dr. Ellis's work to improve patient medication taking is another example of how IUPUI faculty are TRANSLATING RESEARCH INTO PRACTICE.