Pediatric chronic illness impacts 13.7 million children in America. A cornerstone in the treatment of this growing population is self-management, which embodies medication compliance, family and school support, and child-friendly assistive devices -- each being associated with improved patient outcomes. Electronic compliance monitoring has provided new options for tracking dosing adherence. Schools are taking a more active role in aiding students with medication management, lifting some barriers to wireless communications and e-health technologies during the school day. Recently, with the advent of personal digit assistants (PDAs), electronic messaging is demonstrating promise with just-in-time communication capabilities. Leveraging our company's strong technological platforms that were used in two successful product developments -SmokeSignals(r) and MedSignals TM brands, we will develop a medminding system that schedules optimal dosings, communicates usage to servers, permits the patient and authorized third -parties access to usage history, and provides emergency notification. We will develop and fabricate a prototype that is a highly advanced, non-invasive, child-friendly system that is especially functional for critically or chronically ill children. Its soft pouch container will accommodate a variety of medicine forms, including pills, inhalants, glucometers, and insulin. This proposed study tests the feasibility, efficacy and usability as a child-friendly commercial medminder with advanced capabilities. A randomized, controlled 8-week trial will include 108 children with severe diagnoses of diabetes, epilepsy, or asthma. We hypothesize that the treatment group, receiving a fully functioning device, will show several benefits associated with improved self-management of medications.
