“Smart Pills”: Should Healthcare Providers Be Able to Track Patients’ Medication Intake?
In this day and age, smart devices have made their way into nearly every part of people’s lives: smartphones, watches, and even smart pillows. Keeping up with the trend, the healthcare industry has also been trying to find ways to become “smarter” in efforts to provide more efficient care. However, new technologies like “smart pills” have blurred the boundaries between patient and provider.
Smart pills are tablets containing sensors that transmit physiological information to other wireless devices. The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approved human consumption of smart pills in 2017, mainly for mental disorders like schizophrenia and manic depression. These pills are typically ingested to track dosage over long-term treatment periods where the patient is unable to be constantly monitored in a hospital setting. Patient adherence has been a long-standing issue in the medical community, since many recovery processes are undertaken at the volition of the patient. If a patient simply refuses to follow medical instructions, recovery can be unnecessarily prolonged by weeks or months at a time. As a result, billions of dollars are wasted every year in the U.S. due to extra medical care being administered to easily preventable health relapses.
According to test trials, smart pills were effective in keeping patients on task, but researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) argued that since patient adherence is a complex issue depending on the myriad interactions of a patient’s personal and professional life, all variables preventing patient adherence cannot be sufficiently replicated in a laboratory setting—or at least, not in the settings tested so far.
Smart pills are tablets containing sensors that transmit physiological information to other wireless devices. The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) approved human consumption of smart pills in 2017, mainly for mental disorders like schizophrenia and manic depression. These pills are typically ingested to track dosage over long-term treatment periods where the patient is unable to be constantly monitored in a hospital setting. Patient adherence has been a long-standing issue in the medical community, since many recovery processes are undertaken at the volition of the patient. If a patient simply refuses to follow medical instructions, recovery can be unnecessarily prolonged by weeks or months at a time. As a result, billions of dollars are wasted every year in the U.S. due to extra medical care being administered to easily preventable health relapses.
According to test trials, smart pills were effective in keeping patients on task, but researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) argued that since patient adherence is a complex issue depending on the myriad interactions of a patient’s personal and professional life, all variables preventing patient adherence cannot be sufficiently replicated in a laboratory setting—or at least, not in the settings tested so far.
Smart pills are designed to help a doctor constantly monitor a patient’s health.
Image Source: rawpixel.com
With smart pills, the saying “just what the doctor ordered” takes on a whole new meaning, characterized by effective on-the-clock surveillance and, in theory, medical intervention if a patient is believed to be in physiological distress. Researchers at UIC published a paper in the American Journal of Bioethics, warning that the rapid implementation of this data-centric technology should be accompanied by equally comprehensive regulation. The paper feeds into a growing concern that smart pills are an invasion of privacy by health-care companies that could potentially take advantage of patients by prescribing treatments that the patient either does not want or need.
The debate revolves around an important distinction between patient adherence and patient compliance. While adherence defines a patient’s activity within the boundaries of treatment, compliance describes a dominance of the provider over the patient. This more unequal relationship can result in a violation of the trust between the two parties, leading some bioethicists to believe smart pills are the first step in creating a culture of corporately-sponsored malpractice.
Taking aside this whole debate, the UIC study sidesteps implications of forced compliance by asking a crucial question: Do smart pills provide substantially better patient care compared to other drug practices in terms of efficacy and not just from a money-saving standpoint? If they do not, then introducing smart pills into circulation is at best an unnecessary risk, where patient vulnerabilities could be exploited down the line. In other words, the ethical costs might not outweigh the supposed benefits.
That is not to say that there are no useful applications for smart drugs. In fact, the FDA gave the initial approval after realizing the potential for smart pills to assist schizophrenic or bipolar patients who may require more monitoring than the average patient to maintain an effective drug regimen. On the other hand, the UIC study pushes for caution and advises that patients wait for regulation to catch up with this new trend. As with any type of technological innovation, smart pills could very well prove to be a double-edged sword.
The debate revolves around an important distinction between patient adherence and patient compliance. While adherence defines a patient’s activity within the boundaries of treatment, compliance describes a dominance of the provider over the patient. This more unequal relationship can result in a violation of the trust between the two parties, leading some bioethicists to believe smart pills are the first step in creating a culture of corporately-sponsored malpractice.
Taking aside this whole debate, the UIC study sidesteps implications of forced compliance by asking a crucial question: Do smart pills provide substantially better patient care compared to other drug practices in terms of efficacy and not just from a money-saving standpoint? If they do not, then introducing smart pills into circulation is at best an unnecessary risk, where patient vulnerabilities could be exploited down the line. In other words, the ethical costs might not outweigh the supposed benefits.
That is not to say that there are no useful applications for smart drugs. In fact, the FDA gave the initial approval after realizing the potential for smart pills to assist schizophrenic or bipolar patients who may require more monitoring than the average patient to maintain an effective drug regimen. On the other hand, the UIC study pushes for caution and advises that patients wait for regulation to catch up with this new trend. As with any type of technological innovation, smart pills could very well prove to be a double-edged sword.
Featured Image Source: GDJ
RELATED ARTICLES
|
Vertical Divider
|
Vertical Divider
|
Vertical Divider
|
