Designing an artifact to support incentives for medication adherence

Abstract

This research is motivated by the current trend towards utilization of mobile technology in healthcare interventions. Despite academic and practitioner efforts, lack of medication adherence continues to be a leading indicator of poor health outcomes and increased hospitalizations worldwide. There are several incentive systems that remain relatively unexplored in the field of medication adherence. Our analysis of the current academic research and medication adherence applications indicates a research gap and an opportunity to create a significant contribution through the design of an application (app) addressing the complex problem of medication adherence. Therefore, we propose the design of an app to positively influence patient behavior through incentives to improve medication adherence. The contribution of this research is a novel design utilizing multiple incentive types to improve patient adherence and wellbeing.