HU-Buddy: Alternative Method for Delivering Directly Observed Therapy

Application

Mobile application to deliver directly observed therapy (DOT) videos to a caregiver.

Key Benefits

  • Saves time for patients and health care workers.
  • Increases patient drug compliance.
  • Reduces costs for patients.

Market Summary

Poor drug compliance can be a confounding factor in clinical trials, and in infectious patients can lead to increased risk of infections spreading within a community. Directly observed therapy (DOT), in which a patient is watched while they take their medications, improves drug adherence in clinical trials and is associated with a decrease in spread of tuberculosis and HIV. DOT also gives the patient the opportunity to inform their health care worker about problems and side effects with the medication. While DOT shows great promise, it can be prohibitively expensive and time consuming for a patient to travel to their health care facility for DOT on a daily or weekly basis.

Technical Summary

Emory inventors have created a mobile application-based alternative to directly observed therapy (DOT). The application will be downloaded on the patient’s mobile device and on the device of a care-giver or selected “buddy” who has agreed to monitor the DOT. The mobile application can be programmed to give timed reminders to take prescribed medication. The patient will then use the application to send a video of themselves administering their medication to their “buddy.” These videos will be deleted from the servers after being viewed or within 4 hours to prevent patient privacy violations. The server will store data regarding the number of days with a submitted video DOT, whether the medication intake video was submitted more than 2 hours after the scheduled time, and whether the submitted video DOT prompted the “buddy” to contact the patient. This application can be used in both clinical and research settings to monitor patient adherence to the prescribed medications.

Developmental Stage

This mobile application is available for use in the clinic or research setting.

Patent Information

Tech ID: 17168
Published: 4/17/2018