Creating Digital Health Solutions with Common OTC Medications

Wearable Sensors, Digital Health and the News

Recently, I have started seeing some interesting items on my friends Facebook feeds and on digital health and technology innovations. Namely, adhesive biosensors and temporary tattoos. It started when I saw a friend online post a tattoo they got that showed their running times in a race (see example). I thought that was a really neat idea, and wondered if it could have benefits with patient identification and other sorts in the hospital or other environments. 

In any case, I saw other new biosensors that are being developed as well along similar lines. First, Chaotic Moon is developing biosensors that attach like tattoos. Another company is creating an adhesive biosensor that can detect infections in the blood. This stuff is damn cool. I could see a mix being used to monitor patients with infections and their febrile status or how well a patient is improving.

My Idea and Concept Map

So, working with some of these ideas and concepts being designed, I wondered where something similar could be applied in the pharmacy world. How can we take new digital health solutions, and combine them with OTC medications? One place I started with was Tylenol (APAP), one of the most widely known OTC drugs.

I decided to play with the idea of creating an attachable biosensor for children that could track the body temperature, and send data in real-time to a parents smartphone about their childs status, and could help remind how much medication to give the child along with reminders of when to adminster medications, along with alerts if treatment is not working and requires further contact with a provider. So see the following for my concept:

Combining Digital Health tools with OTC Medications (Case: At home fever treatment in a child)

So, the idea is rough at this time, but I think you can see where I am going with this. In any event, I think it would be cool, if say, a company like Janssen that makes Tylenol would start making such OTC products that integrated digital health tools to provide parents/patients with more awareness and information at the disposal. 

Going beyond my idea, I think there are multiple possibilities for Digital Health solutions with OTC drugs, especially as cost comes down and big pharma turns an eye to this area of new development.

Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments!