Presentation of MedGUIDE project to Healthcare professionals - Cyprus
On the 2nd of December, Materia Group held an event at its premises to demonstrate the MedGUIDE application to healthcare professionals and collect their feedback. Materia Group is an end-user partner and responsible for the evaluation phases in the MedGUIDE project.
Four occupational therapists from the European University of Cyprus were involved in the presentation and discussions. Members of the MedGUIDE project team in Cyprus presented the application whilst elaborating on the goals and objectives of the project. MedGUIDE project provides an innovative approach to polypharmacy management by supporting seniors in their medication adherence using sensor technology and smart pill-boxes while at the same time providing formal and informal caregivers with useful insights on the person’s health status.
Overall, the professionals engaged with the members of the project and provided very positive feedback. They, also, highlighted some areas for future improvement for the application. For example, all the professionals pointed out that the MedGUIDE system could be very helpful for people with difficulties in adhering to their medication plan or people with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). One of the limitations identified was that the caregiver/professional cannot be sure that people actually took their medication. As the professionals stressed, in many cases, patients might take the pills out of the box but forget to take them. As such, they suggested to include a camera or another sensor to provide more reliable info on the actual medication intake. Another suggestion for improvement was to make the application compatible for people having hearing difficulties. This could be achieved by adding a ‘blinking screen’ feature on the tablet or by having multiple transmitters in the house to ensure that the person is notified despite being away from the tablet. All in all, the occupational therapists stated that the system would be very assistive for their practice since they would gain important real-time and everyday information on their patients’ health and mobility patterns.