By Michael Myers (@mmyerspalio)

In a recurring series, Patient 2.0 posts look at what goes on outside the marketing company and the exam room. Where are the places where patients interact with their health care, and how can digital technology help them?

The Medicine Cabinet.

That mirrored box on the wall you spend a whole lot of time staring into? What’s that got to do with anything?

Well, in addition to checking your hair, poking at your wrinkles, flossing, and whatever else you do around there, you probably have at least one of those amber cylinders in there. You are a patient and your medicine cabinet holds the proof.

It’s estimated that 1.5 million Americans are hurt or killed each year from mistakes in how their prescriptions are prescribed, dispensed, or taken.

There are many errors made by the prescribers. Just in the last year, a friend of mine has once received a prescription meant for the wrong person, and once received a prescription she’s allergic to. The first one, she caught; the second one, she didn’t until she’d already taken it. Fortunately, it wasn’t a life-threatening allergy. There are also errors made by the dispensing pharmacists. But what about all the errors made by us, ourselves, in our own bathrooms?

Take every day. Twice a day. Once a week. Every six hours. Every four hours. With pain. With water. Without grapefruit juice. Before bed. Until empty. Not with blood-thinners. Keep refrigerated. There are an awful lot of rules to follow, and those little stickers on the bottle only help so much.

This is where we should be rubbing our hands together in glee. Just start to think about all of the opportunities here! What can we do to make patients’ lives – OUR lives – easier? How about:

• A time-delayed bottle that won’t pop open till it’s time. Or even the whole medicine chest!
  
• Lights that shine through the mirrored glass, indicating whether you’ve taken that day’s dose.
• More apps like iPills that can help you track your prescription adherence in a quick, convenient, visually pleasing way.
• Augmented reality videos that can walk people through using their prescription devices – anything from a blood sugar monitor to an epipen to a CPAP mask.

Do you have an example of a great way digital technology is helping make the medicine cabinet a little less scary?