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EZMeds is an innovative medication system that helps individuals (especially elderly) with medication adherence by accurately dispensing the required medications at the ideal times

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Inspiration

Inspiration for this project comes from our own elderly members in our household. Often, due to multiple chronic conditions caused by old age, elderly members in our society has a magnitude of medication with different timing on when to take them. As a result, confusion on the differing schedules and usage of different medication, leads to poor medication adherence and result in less than ideal outcomes.

A existing solution to this problem for young and technology savvy people is to simply use an application installed on their phone to remind themselves. However, as many elderly often does not use modern phones (due to reluctance or otherwise). Similarly, other existing solution such as the weekly (mon,tue,wed...) sorter often require lot of prior prep work and knowledge of the medication. This method may also be unable to capture the exact timing required for different medication.

As such, our team proposed a physical hardware device that aims to automate the process of sorting the required medication and increase medication adherence by reducing the guesswork involved. The device can be configured by other stakeholders like caregivers or doctors and used by the elderly.

What it does

Our project will consist of 2 main parts:

  • The Hardware: Medication Dispensing System The hardware will be able to store and dispense the medication as configured. It also contain a alert/alarm system that is able to notify the patient to take their medication.

Additional features for consideration may include a low stock alert or a monitoring system.

  • The Software: Application A application that is able to figure out when to dispense a medication simply by taking a photo of the label and configure the machine.

Additional features for consideration may include a translation for label and medication information lookup.

How we built it

As a proof of concept, due to the time constraints, a the standard HSA label is Singapore is sent to AWS services to be parsed for the dosage and schedule.

For the hardware, a small 3D printed container used and connected to an servo that act as the dispensing system. The dispensing system, alongside a buzzer, is connected and controlled by an Arduino.

Challenges we ran into

  • Integration with AWS APIs
  • Integration of computer software to control the Arudino and systems
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