Use of QR and EAN-13 codes by older patients taking multiple medications for a safer use of medication

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijmedinf.2015.02.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Elderly patients taking multiple medications care of several people.

  • TUMEDICINA is a first attempt to apply technology and QR barcodes to prevent medication errors.

  • TUMEDICINA can be especially useful for patients over the care of different people.

Abstract

Background

Older persons following a prolonged complex drug regimen often make mistakes when taking their medication. Currently, the widespread use of tablets and smartphones has encouraged the development of applications to support self-management of medication.

Objective

The aim of this study was to design, develop and assess an app that transforms medication-associated ean-13 (barcodes) and Quick Response codes (QR) into verbal instructions, to enable safer use of medication by the elderly patients taking multiple medications.

Methods

Meetings were held in which participated a total of 61 patients.

Results

The results showed that patients appreciated the application and found it useful for safer use of medicines.

Conclusions

The study results support the use of such technology to increase patient safety taking multiple medications safety.

Introduction

Older persons following a prolonged complex drug regimen often make mistakes when taking their medication [1], [2], [3], [4]. These mistakes usually involve confusions in the drugs themselves or their correct dose or else forgetting to take a drug, any of which may sometimes have severe consequences [5]. These patients usually have tricks to help them with the correct use of their medication; for example, using pill boxes, associating a drug with their meals, or making a note on the drug box of the dose and therapeutic indication in order to avoid these omissions or confusions [4], [6], [7].

The growth in the sales of tablet computers and smartphones has favoured the development of applications to help people remember to take their medication [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15]. These pill-box like applications can be adapted to the individual preferences, therapeutic regimen, dosage and lifestyle of the patient. They help with the self-medication of drugs regularly taken by independently living patients. An alternative method involves ean-13 (barcodes) and more recently QR (Quick Response codes), which are now also becoming more common in the healthcare setting, though with more applications available for the professional as opposed to the patient [16], [17], with the latter mainly aimed at improving patient safety [18].

We here report on the development and evaluation of an application that transforms medication-associated ean-13 and QR codes into verbal instructions, to enable safer use of medication by the patient.

Section snippets

The description of the app

The application, named in Spanish TUMEDICINA (YourMedicine) (Fig. 1), has been developed for smartphones and tablet computers using both Android and iOS considering the chronically ill patients information collected in previously study [15] for a safety medication use.

TUMEDICINA captures the ean-13 or the QR from the packaging of the medication and converts it into spoken instructions. These instructions include the therapeutic aim of the drug, the dosage, expiry date, information about

Results

A total of 61 patients answered all the questions. Their mean age was 68.8 years (SD 8.3) and 24 (39.3%) were older than 70 years; 38 (62.3%) were men. The proportion of men older than 70 years of age was similar to that of women (p = 0.98). Only 6 (9.8%) patients lived alone; 55 (90.2%) lived with a partner or other relative. In all, 53 (86.9%) patients stated that they were responsible for organizing and taking their medication at home. The participants reported a mean of 3.0 (SD 2.0)

Discussion

The study patients valued the TUMEDICINA application positively and considered it useful for a safer use of their drugs. The use of TUMEDICINA was equally easy for the patients who already had experience with cell phones, tablets or computers as for those who were using this technology for the first time. TUMEDICINA was particularly well valued by the patients who normally used pillboxes or who made notes on the packaging to help them recall the purpose of the medicine. This indicates that

Author contributions

All the authors have contributed substantially to the material and/or intellectual content, data analysis, if applicable, and the writing of the manuscript, sufficiently to accept public accountability for it.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare they have no conflict of interest for this study.

Summary points

What was already known on the topic:

  • Older persons following a prolonged complex drug regimen often make mistakes when taking their medication (confusions and omissions). These patients usually have tricks to help them with the correct use of their medication.

  • The growth in the sales of tablet computers and smartphones has encouraged the development of applications to help people remember to take their medication.

Acknowledgements

This study was financed by the Generalitat Valenciana. Grants for research projects to improve the care of chronic complex patients and patients susceptible to palliative care (Reference PCC-19/13).

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