A pill embedded with a sensor that can tell doctors—and potentially others—if and when a patient takes his or her medication, recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is touted as a solution to prescription medication nonadherence, which costs the American health care system between $100 billion and $289 billion a year, according to a review in Annals of Internal Medicine. And those are just the financial costs. It also causes about 125,000 deaths annually, the article says.
While acknowledging the medical and financial benefits of the so-called digital pill, health care and data privacy lawyers expressed concerns about data security and patient consent.
“The slippery slope danger is really real,” said Michael Whitener, a data privacy expert and partner at VLP Law Group.
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Kristen Rasmussen
Kristen Rasmussen is an Atlanta-based reporter who covers corporate law departments and in-house attorneys.
