Here’s a definition of medication adherence: Adherence to, or compliance with, a medication regimen is generally defined as the extent to which a person takes medications as prescribed by their healthcare providers. There’s been a big investment in medication adherence and there’s good reasons.
According to a World Health Organization report (and countless other sources) available in print only “adherence to long-term therapy for chronic illnesses in developed countries averages 50%” and “removing barriers to adherence must become a central component of efforts to improve population health worldwide.”
Apps are one answer, but while effective they require installation, that the user become familiar with a new tool and switches contexts to use them. What if the barrier of an application could be removed, onboarding could be simplified, you could interact with something you already are intimately comfortable with and even remove the need to reveal your identity?
Facebook Messenger bots are an ideal solution and there’s one billion people using Messenger that would instantly have access to a tool that could improve their health and communication with doctors.
The core of medication adherence is remembering to take your medication at the right times in the right dosages and then doing it consistently.
Let’s look at how easy it would be for a Type II diabetes patient or caregiver to get started with a Messenger bot. The patient could scan a profile code from Messenger or do a search and immediately start talking to an adherence bot. There’s no need at this point to set up another account or even reveal your identity because the bot will just use the number Facebook has assigned to you in Messenger.
The bot would instruct the patient how to add their first medication and give details about dosing amounts and times and that’s it. The patient will immediately start getting friendly reminders at the times they specified and be on the road to better health. This can literally be completed in under two minutes.