Medication Adherence and Liquid Level Tracking System for Healthcare Provider Feedback

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Geriatric Medicine
• Health Informatics

Background:

• Accurate tracking of patient medication adherence is a significant challenge for healthcare providers, particularly for eye drop medications.
• Existing adherence monitoring solutions primarily focus on pills, neglecting the specific needs of eye drop regimens.
• Real-time feedback on medication management is crucial for effective patient care and intervention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate an intelligent bottle sleeve for prescription eye drop bottles.
• To enable real-time detection of eye drop usage, measurement of fluid levels, and transmission of data to healthcare teams.
• To facilitate timely intervention and informed decision-making in patient medication management.

Main Methods:

• An intelligent sleeve equipped with embedded electronics was designed to fit prescription eye drop bottles.
• The sleeve measures fluid level, dropper orientation, dropper top state (on/off), and angular motion during application.
• The system was tested with ten patients aged 65 and older, with data transmitted via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Main Results:

• The intelligent sleeve successfully identified and timestamped 94% of eye drop use events in patients aged 65 and older.
• On-board processing allowed for accurate event detection and fluid level measurement with 0.4 mL resolution.
• Real-time data transmission to healthcare teams enabled rapid feedback and monitoring of medication use behavior.

Conclusions:

• The intelligent bottle sleeve is a viable tool for accurately monitoring eye drop adherence in elderly patients.
• Real-time data transmission facilitates timely clinical intervention and supports informed treatment decisions.
• This technology addresses a critical gap in medication adherence monitoring for ophthalmic solutions.