Text Messages from a Microchip on Your Shoulder Remind You to Take Your Pills

Chip-on-a-shoulder sends nagging text messages to patients
who fail to follow doctors' orders .

A text-messaging microchip planted on the patient's body
significantly boosts compliance with doctor's prescriptions,
according to pharmaceutical giant Novartis. That's good news
for patient health and reining in healthcare costs, but
a potentially worrisome development for privacy advocates.

Patients taking a drug for lowering blood pressure also
received two additional gifts: tiny microchips within each
pill and a shoulder-attached sensor patch. Mobihealthnews
explained how stomach acid surrounding the ingested pills
generates an electric charge, and that signals the shoulder
patch.

The patch dutifully records the time and date when a patient
takes each pill, so that it can give its wearer a cell phone
buzz when it's time to take the next pill. Other information,
such as heart rate, activity and breathing patterns, are also
transmitted to the cell phone and onto the Internet -- a form
of extreme patient transparency for watchful caregivers.

The Financial Times reports that the 20 guinea pig patients
improved their compliance from 30 percent to 80 percent after
half a year. Novartis might expand its approach by striking
an exclusive deal with chip supplier Proteus Biomedical.

Medical technology has long moved toward greater monitoring
capabilities, whether patients are in an operating room or
out jogging on the trail. Growing numbers of smart cell
phones have also permitted doctors and patients alike to
gauge personal health in unprecedented ways.

Still, future patients may find it somewhat unnerving to get
nagging reminders from that chip on their shoulder --
especially when they know the guys in white coats aren't far
behind.