The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD has awarded “emocha Mobile Health” https://www.emocha.com an additional $1 million over two years to evaluate their medication-adherence platform for patients with TB. The research will take place at several sites in the U.S. and researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine will conduct the evaluation.
Health departments in the U.S are responsible for treating patients with TB which is highly contagious and costly if not contained. To help ensure high medication adherence, patients must take every dose of medication to treat TB in front of a healthcare provider, a practice known as Directly Observed Therapy (DOT).
To do this, patients can use emocha’s mobile app to video record themselves taking their medications. Using a web portal, the patient’s care team or emocha adherence coaches review the video, confirm medication ingestion, and engage with the patient.
Emocha’s video DOT platform is asynchronous, so DOT can take place at times convenient for both the patient and provider without the costs associated with traveling or scheduling appointments.
This award builds on a study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine that found emocha’s video DOT platform helps patients with TB achieve 94 percent medication adherence with the potential to save public health programs $1,391 per patient on average.