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The patient interviewed is a female over the age 80 who is living by herself. She has had long history of Type II diabetes and hyperlipemia, and has record of heart attacks, so it is really important for her to take her daily medicines. The patient takes around 3 to 4 medicines everyday, not including daily calcium and multi-vitamin. Most of her medicines are taken once per day around dinner time, but one medicine must be taken twice a day. The patient said that she usually doesn't forget to take her medicines on a regular day where she would stay at home for most of the day. However, when she is eating out or visiting someone, it's a lot more likely for her to forget to bring or eat her medicines. The doctor has also instructed her to take one of the medicines one hour before she eats dinner, another one with dinner and the rest after dinner. The patient said that she sometimes forgets to follow the doctor's instructions. If she misses any of her medicines before dinner, she would just take everything after dinner. Even though she is aware that this might affect the effectiveness of the medicines a little bit, but she does not really know how much the effect could be. Another problem the patient often faces is that she forgets whether she has taken her medicines for the day or not. She said that she would accidentally take a medicine twice within a time span of half an hour, because she just can't remember whether she has taken the medicine half an hour ago or not and wants to make sure that she doesn't miss her medicine.
Interview: patient 3
The patient interviewed is between twenty to thirty years old, has a 9 to 5 very regular job and just about average physically active. The patient has allergy problem. So the medication that the patient regularly takes are vitamin, fish oils and allergy pills. The patient normally take the vitamin and the fish oil in the morning and take the allergy pill at night. Yet due to the fact that his allergy symptoms often varies according to the seasons or different condition, he takes his allergy pills at different time. The patient often forgets about his vitamin or fish oil when he is rushing to the office, and he wishes to have some sort of reminder to remind him to take the medication either before he goes to work or when he arrives at the office. He thought he will also be nice to have some sort of note taking feature on the app, which he can use it to record the progress or the condition or his allergy situation.
Interview: doctor 1
The surgeon I interviewed is a female between forty and fifty. She has about fifty patients each day. She is concerned about the issue of patients not taking medication correctly and said it may cause serious consequences if the patients fails to take it correctly. She thinks it would be helpful to get the information about whether the patients have followed the instruction correctly, but she stresses that it would be even better if she can get direct feedback from the patients about the effectiveness of the drug. “A lot of times, our problem is that the patients cannot communicate with us directly, in a timely manner about the effectiveness of the medicine and whether it has any side effects.” She thinks getting feedback from the patients about the effectiveness of the drugs not only helps to treat the patient, but also helps the doctors to understand the disease better. “It would also be helpful to know whether the patient has gotten any better before they come to me again,” she adds. When asked about what information she wants to give the patients except the time and dosage of the medicine, she includes “the correct way to take it and its side effects.”
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