Application Design to Incentivize Medication Adherence for Chronic Care

Authors

Alan T. Yang, University of Nevada RenoFollow
Mala Kaul, University of Nevada, RenoFollow
Upkar Varshney, GSUFollow

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 especially for chronic care patients (McQuaid and Landier 2018; Sweeney et al.and Vanable 2016; Yang and Varshney 2016). Our focus area is on gamification-based mobile applications designed for improvingto incentivize and improve patient medication adherence. We have conducted an initial survey of mobile applications in the medication adherence space and their features. Our analysis of the current research academic literature and review of existing medication adherence applications indicates a research gap and an opportunity to create a significant contribution through the research-based design of an application that provides a solution to the complex practical problem of medication adherence in chronic disease management. We propose the design and evaluation of an application to improve medication adherence for patients with chronic disorders through incentives. Our results provide more information on the feasibility of incentives and mobile applications as ways to positively influence patient behavior. The contribution of this research is a novel design comprising a combination of multiple intervention and incentive types to improve medication adherence. While the initial design and development will adopt a means-end, idiographic approach to the solution design, further iterations will be used to derive nomothetic design knowledge on the design of incentivizing applications. Our practical contribution addresses the problem of medication adherence by applying technology to behavioral incentives in a planned, user-centric way.

Recommended Citation

Yang, Alan T.; Kaul, Mala; and Varshney, Upkar, "Application Design to Incentivize Medication Adherence for Chronic Care" (2020). AMCIS 2020 TREOs. 45.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/treos_amcis2020/45