Cool Pharmacy Technology – NFC-enabled medication compliance

Thanks to Timothy Aungst for the tip. His Tweet led me to this Quand Medical page where I found a little bit of information about their medication compliance software. Their solution utilizes NFC technology to aid patients with tracking and taking their medication as well as potentially reducing errors.

The Tweet from Timothy was timely as I’ve been musing about using NFC technology in the medication use process. With the popularity of smartphones and the slow, but steady adoption of things like Google Wallet, it makes sense to take a deeper dive and give the technology a long hard look.

I would have liked to have seen a video of the product in action, but I couldn’t find one. Who knows whether or not this is the solution for medication compliance, but it’s certainly a tool worth investigation.

From the Quand Medical Site:

Using a combination of Near Field Communication (NFC) and mobile phone technology, the Quand application becomes the proxy of an attentive medication manager, handling cueing, deferrals, missed doses, and all other complexities for single or multi-medication regimens. To respond to a cue, the patient must at some point bring the correct NFC-tagged medication package into close proximity to the reader, which acts as confirmation that the dose has been taken.

With a mobile phone and medication package fitted with an NFC tag, Quand authenticates both the consumer and the medication, eliminating medication error risks. Without any user programming, it immediately links the consumer to tools that oversee safety concerns (conflicts, contra-indications), display progress feedback, provide drug and therapy related information, and open a window to additional support resources or advertising. Using a familiar device that is a daily companion – the mobile phone – allows Quand to focus attention on compliance, and not on technology.

What is Near Field Communication (NFC)?
Near Field Communication is a short-range wireless connectivity technology based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). RFID cards are also known as “proximity”, “proxy” or “contactless cards” and come in three general varieties: passive, semi-passive (also known as semi-active), or active. NFC tags are essentially the same as RFID passive contactless cards (minus the “card”).

NFC allows people to use the simple act of touching or placing their device — such as the Samsung SGH-X700 or Nokia 6131 NFC pictured here — close to something to initiate a service. In simple terms, NFC creates a connection by performing a “handshake” between two devices that are brought close together; NFC removes the need for the user to perform manual configurations. Once the connection is established – within milliseconds – information can be exchanged between the two devices using either NFC directly or via another wireless technology like WiFi, Bluetooth, UWB or ZigBee.

According to ABI Research, half of mobile handsets will support NFC by 2010. The commercial support that the NFC protocol is receiving is best reflected by considering the companies who are the sponsoring members of the NFC Forum, a not-for-profit industry association that promotes the use of NFC short-range wireless interaction in consumer electronics, mobile devices and PCs: HP, Nokia, Samsung, Mastercard, NXP, Sony, Microsoft, Panasonic, Texas Instruments, NEC, Renesas and Visa.