'TakeYourMeds'

A low-tech phone reminder application which has come about from the joining of 2 projects pitched at NHS Hackday 10 in 2015 at King's College London

Fiona Stacey, a Dental Hygienist from the North East, pitched an idea about using a low-tech means to remind radiotherapy head and neck cancer patients to use mouthwash regularly.

Helen Jackson (@DeckOfPandas), a grad-entry medical student and programmer from London, also pitched an idea about a simple type of medication reminder using standard phone calls, for patients unable to use a smartphone.

The two teams quickly realised they were designing different facets of the same project and joined forces to work on a single application that would send a configurable audio message via phone call to a patient, reminding them to use the mouthwash, or take their medication.

What is it?

Patients, carers or friends can set up a reminder advising the patient it is time to take their medication. TYM can call any UK phone or mobile number, or can send a text message.

Why do we need TYM?

Medication reminder applications are readily available for smartphones; however many patients, especially in vulnerable groups, do not own or are unable to use a smartphone. These patients are also more likely to have complex medical needs and to be on more different medications. Our application calls patients on their landline with a recorded reminder message (or can send a text message if preferred).

Technology Stack

• Take Your Meds is a Python/Django application with a lightweight HTML5 frontend.
• It uses a Celery/Redis-based scheduler within the Django app
• Calls are made to a thin wrapper around the Twilio API, enabling the application to place a telephone call or send an SMS. The current 'proof-of-concept' is set to deliver one of two prerecorded audio files.

Installation

See Wiki pages at https://github.com/open-health-hub/reminder/wiki/Installation

TODO

See Git Hub issues for a fuoll and up-to0date list

• IN PROGRESS: enable creation of a customised reminder message instead of the choice of 2 default messages in the proof-of-concept version.
• IN PROGRESS: closing app feedback loop - the patient receiving the call should be able to press a key during the call to acknowledge the reminder and to indicate that they have taken the medication/used the mouthwash. This information should propagate back to the user interface, giving a real-time indication of the patient's use of medication. This would serve as an 'early warning' of poor compliance which might indicate increased confusion or patient intercurrent illness.
• improve frontend to allow flexible configuration of reminder times. (currently the options for reminder frequency are hard-coded in the UI to offer 1 times, 2 times, 3 times or 4 times per day which was sufficient for our NHSHD proof-of-concept)
• • Offer an option for the message receiver to contact the person who set up the reminder
• ??? Work out the telephony root url (using build_absolute_url) instead of configuring it.

Contributing

• Find an issue you think you may be able to assist with
• Email [email protected] to say hello anda let us know what you want to do
• Fork the code and make your improvements
• Submit a pull request
• Admire :)

Credits

• Fiona Stacey @fiona_stacey (Dental Hygienist) - pitched Mouthwash reminder idea
• Helen @DeckOfPandas (Med student & Dev) - pitched Medication reminder idea, copy writing
• Marcus Baw @marcus_baw - Documentation
• Ross Jones @rossjones - Twilio wrapper code
• Sym Roe @symroe - Scheduler code
• Jude Gibbons @judegibbons - UI/frontend
• Mike Thompson @mikejthompson - UI/frontend
• Carrie Christensen @c-christensen - Twilio wrapper
• David Szotten @szotten - Django/Python app