Wired for Safety, Student Unveils Enhanced Pill Dispenser

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

When M.P.H. student Alex Rich learned about the Plimsoll line, a fundamental of maritime safety, he had an “aha” moment.

A circle that is bisected by a long line painted on the hull of commercial ships, the Plimsoll line shows the maximum depth to which a ship may safely be immersed when loaded. Developed in the 1870s and introduced following a lengthy political battle, the line makes it easy for anyone to see if a ship is overloaded and potentially unsafe.

Here was a simple solution to a complex problem that once cost the lives of an untold number of young sailors. It is the kind of solution Rich wants to apply to health care: simple ones that take complicated problems with misaligned incentives and distill them down to inexpensive human-centered solutions.

One such problem touched Rich personally. His grandfather, who was his hero and inspired him to become a pilot, died of complications from pneumonia while Rich was deployed. It turned out that the illness had begun with challenges he had taking his medication on time. Rich later learned that what happened to his grandfather isn’t unusual; every year, 125,000 people in the United States die from prescription adherence problems. So Rich started thinking about simple Plimsoll-line-like solutions to help patients take the correct medication on schedule.

What he came up with is pillTracker, a reminder system that alerts patients that it’s time to take their medication and signals the need for human intervention if it doesn’t happen. “It attracts attention when it’s needed and leaves the patient alone when it isn’t,” said Rich, a first-year candidate in the Health Care Management Program.