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Wireless makes
house calls Doctors may not make
many house calls anymore, but a struggling online pharmacy is making sure
they can visit a cell phone at a moment's notice. Smartmeds.com has
begun offering a way to have reminders about taking medications beamed
directly to cell phones, but only if the phones are capable of receiving
text messages. Anybody can sign up
for the service using the company's Web
site. The company also partners with 70 health maintenance
organizations, which may also offer the service in the future. The medical industry
has been among the first to take to wireless devices and the potential
they possess. Doctors share information about patients through wireless
networks at some hospitals. Some companies are working on ways to put a
patient's information onto a small bar code worn around the wrist, ending
mistakes made in filling out form after form. The Smartmeds program
is among the first of the new wireless tools that can be used directly by
a consumer, analysts point out. However, anyone with a
PalmPilot or other personal digital assistant can create similar personal
reminders, said Ovum Research's David Bradshaw. People can, for instance,
tell their e-mail providers to send these same types of reminders to their
handhelds on a regular basis, he said. There are also more
primitive ways of doing this. Bradshaw said that a co-worker of his that
has Parkinson's disease simply sets a timer on his wristwatch for the
times he needs to take the life-saving pills. "One of the
things that bothers me about this business model is the person who needs a
reminder doesn't necessarily carry a PDA," Bradshaw said. "I do
think this is a smart use of this technology, though." The program is also
limited to a small customer base--those who possess phones capable of
receiving short text messages. While these types of phones are big in
Europe and Asia, they are just making it to the United States, analysts
say. Smartmeds Chief
Executive Dan Rosen has hopes for the service despite some of its
drawbacks. He said some of the HMOs that Smartmeds works with are testing
the service for possible use in the future. "So much money is
wasted in health care based on people not taking their medications
properly," he said. "There's a big world out there of people who
don't have PDAs and sync them up." He said the service
was limited to cell phones for a reason. A lot of people have cell phones
and know how to use them. Eventually, he said, the service will be
expanded to involve some PDAs as well. Customers can sign up
for the service through the company's Web site. A customer has to provide
a number of personal details beyond their medical history, including a
home phone number and a home address. The service will then
send a short text message to the person's cell phone whenever it's time to
take a pill. The person receiving
the alert has to send Smartmeds a message back that they've taken their
medications. The home phone numbers and addresses are necessary because if
a certain period of time passes, and there is no response, it's possible
that medical authorities could be sent to a person's home, Rosen said. On Monday, the
company's parent, Infutech,
received a delisting notice from the Nasdaq stock market, where its stock
has been hovering above one point. Also, its largest shareholder has filed
for bankruptcy protection.
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