Care4Today™ Mobile Health Manager, a Free, Secure Digital Platform to Help Manage Medicines, Launches in the United Kingdom

LONDON, May 23, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

Not taking medication correctly, or forgetting altogether, can have a significant impact on health, often resulting in delayed recovery or even hospitalisation^[6].

Janssen Healthcare Innovation (JHI) has launched Care4Today™ Mobile Health Manager, a free and secure mobile app and website designed to enable people to stay on track and in control of their medicines and treatments. The platform generates medication dosing and repeat prescription reminders with the aim of improving medicines adherence. It also provides family members and carers the opportunity to provide support through a digital network.

Lack of medicine adherence causes significant problems not only for those relying on medication to manage their condition but also for the wider UK economy. It is a leading cause of delayed recovery and hospitalisation, with approximately £466m spent on medication-related hospitalisations each year in the UK.^[1] In addition, around £100-£150 million worth of medicines go unused in the UK each year,^[2],[3] potentially wasting much needed funds.

There are many reasons people don't take their medicines as prescribed, including "simply forgetting". Today's busy lifestyles and distractions make forgetting to take medications common, but can lead to serious health consequences, including delayed recovery, disease relapse and hospitalisation. Setting the correct dose and timing is fundamental and an aspect of treatment that can be overlooked. In the UK, only ten days after starting a medicine, almost a third of patients are already not taking the medicine as directed by their healthcare professional.^[2]

Care4Today™ Mobile Health Manager aims to support individuals in the UK who take a medicine regularly, such as the 15 million with long-term conditions^[4], by helping to remind them, and their families and carers, which medication they should be taking and when. Since 97% of people in the UK carry a mobile phone with them^[5], using this free technology can help support their self-care by providing a tailored reminder service and a list of all their medications at the touch of a button.

Care4Today™ Mobile Health Manager can be used to monitor any medication by any manufacturer across any disease area, with over 20,000 registered treatments pre-loaded and users able to quickly and easily add other medicines themselves. This makes it an invaluable tool for patients, families, carers and healthcare professionals alike to manage chronic conditions which may have complex treatment regimens such as diabetes, cancer and HIV, providing peace of mind. Care4Today™ Mobile Health Manager is not just for pill reminders; it can also be helpful for simple but important everyday remedies such as vitamins and minerals supplements, contraceptives, allergy medicines, or activities such as taking a walk.

Created by Janssen Healthcare Innovation, part of Janssen-Cilag Ltd, and available free from the iTunes App Store and Google Play, Care4Today™ Mobile Health Manager sends reminders to the user to take their medication and renew their prescription. It also features built-in reports that track when and how medicines are taken over a period of time - these reports can be shared with a healthcare professional directly from the mobile phone during appointments. In addition to working on all smartphones, the online, web-based platform can also be configured to send reminders via text messages to those people with a more standard mobile phone handset.

Designed in consultation with patients, clinicians and pharmacists, the app also features the Care4Family™ platform. This function allows people to connect their profile to a designated relative, friend or carer who can then see whether they have taken their medication as prescribed or receive an alert if a dose is missed. As such, the platform can provide peace of mind to users' loved ones, including parents with children managing chronic conditions whilst at university and those with older relatives taking multiple medications.

"We are delighted to launch Care4Today™ Mobile Health Manager in the UK as part of our ongoing commitment to find innovative ways to help improve the lives and outcomes of those with health conditions," said David Tripi, Head of Enabling Technologies, Janssen Healthcare Innovation. "We recognise the crucial role families and carers can play in a patient's journey to health and the Care4Today™ Mobile Health Manager platform allows them to more easily support those they care for."

For more information or to sign up for free, download the Care4Today™ Mobile Health Manager app or visit: mhm.care4today.com.

Notes to editors:  

About Care4Today™ Mobile Health Manager  

Care4Today™ Mobile Health Manager is more than just a self-directed reminder tool. It can help support and encourage users to manage their health. The free app allows users to manage their medications from their mobile phone or computer. Using a colour-coded system, it can help people see when it's time to take a medication and helps them stay on schedule.

Care4Today™ Mobile Health Manager does so much more than apps that just send reminders, such as:

• Track progress and get reports that you can share with your doctor
• Care4Family™ allows you to see if your loved ones are taking their medications

How Care4Today™ Mobile Health Manager works:  

1. Download the free app from mhm.care4today.com, Google Play or the App Store
2. Simply enter your medications and the time you take them
3. Choose to set up repeat prescription reminders to help you avoid running out of medications

Care4Today™ Mobile Health Manager works on PCs, tablets, smartphones and most standard mobile phone handsets.

About Care4Today™  

Janssen Healthcare Innovation (JHI) is leading healthcare transformation through Care4Today™ solutions. Care4Today™ solutions provide tools and information for patients and healthcare professionals to help improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs. Care4Today™ includes three integrated care solutions, which are designed to help transform healthcare delivery (Heart Health Solutions, Mental Health Solutions, and Orthopaedic Solutions) and a digital platform (Mobile Health Manager) to improve medicines adherence. For more information, go to http://www.care4today.com/.

About Janssen Healthcare Innovation  

JHI is an entrepreneurial team within Janssen Research & Development, which is committed to developing cutting edge integrated health solutions and enabled technologies to modernise healthcare delivery and improve patient care, particularly in areas of significant need. JHI is building on the heritage and expertise of the wider Janssen pharmaceutical business to develop novel approaches that help address some of the greatest challenges in healthcare delivery across Europe. For more information go to: http://www.janssenhealthcareinnovation.com/.

References  

1. Pirmohamed M et al. Adverse drug reactions as cause of admission to hospital: prospective analysis of 18 820 patients. BMJ 2004; 329: 15-19. Available from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC443443/pdf/bmj32900015.pdf. Last accessed April 2014.
2. Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Medicines Optimisation: Helping patients to make the most of medicines. Available from: https://www.rpharms.com/promoting-pharmacy-pdfs/helping-patients-make-the-most-of-their-medicines.pdf. Last accessed April 2014.
3. York Health Economics Consortium and School of Pharmacy, University of London. Evaluation of the scale, causes and costs of waste medicines. November 2010. Available from: http://eprints.pharmacy.ac.uk/2605/1/Evaluation_of_NHS_Medicines_Waste__web_publication_version.pdf. Last accessed May 2014.
4. King's Fund. Long-term conditions and multi-morbidity. Available from: http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/time-to-think-differently/trends/disease-and-disability/long-term-conditions-multi-morbidity. Last accessed April 2014.
5. Nielsen. The mobile consumer - a global snapshot. February 2013. Available from: http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/corporate/uk/en/documents/Mobile-Consumer-Report-2013.pdf. Last accessed May 2014. Last accessed May 2014.
6 The 21st Century Intelligent Pharmacy Project: The Importance of Medication Adherence, Center for Health Transformation, 2010. Available from: http://www.mirixa.com/uploads/pdfs/2010_-_CHTMedAdhrWp.pdf 

Contacts:

Sarah Hills, Janssen Healthcare Innovation 
M: +44(0)78-6718-0191
E: shills@its.jnj.com 

Melanie Vickers, Red Health
T: +44(0)20-7025-6519 (direct)
E: melanie.vickers@redconsultancy.com

Preparation Date: May 2014 Item code PHGB/JHI/0514/0005