Compliance packaging that works in real life

Beta test reveals insights about a new compliance-prompting package.

compliance_packaging_bottle
compliance_packaging_bottle

It’s easy to write dispassionately about the importance of patient compliance and the role of packaging. But it’s a different story when you become a participant in a Beta test of a new product and find yourself on the front lines of a new compliance-prompting package.

My 13-year-old son Casey has Down Syndrome and some of his behaviors are on the autism spectrum. He takes two different meds twice daily, one dose of each in the morning and a different dose of each at night. The two drugs are Abilify and Chlonodine.

He cannot be responsible for his own compliance, so that task falls to his mother and father—or someday a sibling or caretaker. Interestingly, I’m proud to say we rarely miss a dose. So compliance is not the issue. Our problem is more complex—more often than not if there is a medication error it is that Casey gets double-dosed!

Because we are running around our hectic household like everyone else these days, I might give Casey his meds and leave for work, and my wife then thinks he missed and gives him his meds again. Or my wife will give Casey his nighttime dose then leave for her book group meeting. When I actually put him to bed later, I will give him his medicine again. Or at least we are inconvenienced having to contact each other and ask if he got his meds already. Abilify, in particular, is an anti-psychotic drug, and a double dose can cause a very off-day.

Could the compliance-promoting package, Vitality’s GlowCaps, which won an innovation award from the Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council, actually help us?

The Vitality GlowCaps people wanted me to put their new product to work, with the understanding I would write whatever I wanted to regarding our experience. I did not approach this article trying to understand how their system works. I did not call Vitality with questions. I wanted only to report from a layperson’s perspective what our experience was using the product.

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