MedsManager

MedsManager ably addresses both the environmental impact of the rare disease health care space and alleviation of burdens for rare disease families. MedsManager contributes to better outcomes, decreases environmental costs, improves the diagnostic journey, increases efficiencies, reduces single-use products and medical waste, and optimizes transportation of supplies by addressing shipping inefficiencies. 

MedsManager offers direct knowledge about a patient's supply of health consumables, free of any dependency on a specific source. MedsManager displays this information in an easy-to-understand bar chart.

ALOGLIPTIN and GLIMEPIRIDE are in shorter supply than other items.

The calendar view shows expected depletion dates for ALOGLIPTIN and GLIMEPIRIDE.

About half of everyone who are prescribed medications fail to adhere to their assigned regimen (1).  Medication regimen adherence is the likelihood that a patient will comply with healthcare recommendations. Poor adherence is shown to contribute to deteriorating health and increasing costs of care.

Of all medication-related hospital admissions in the United States, 33 to 69 percent are due to poor medication adherence, with an adjusted resultant cost of over $150 billion a year. (2)

Poor adherence is especially prevalent among the elderly in the United States, with polypharmacy and complicated drug regimens representing formidable barriers to adherence. (3) 

Poor adherence is a significant problem among the U.S. Hispanic/Latino population, in part because they are generally underserved and often have lower health literacy -- the ability to understand basic health information and make health decisions -- than non-Hispanic whites. Lower health literacy is more common among minority populations with lower English proficiency. Medical care is often perceived by the Hispanic/Latino population to be of poorer quality and less trusted when healthcare providers neither identify as Hispanic/Latino nor speak Spanish. (4) 

Health literacy and adherence increase among Latino populations with low English proficiency when health information is presented in Spanish.

MedsManager promotes better patient outcomes through regimen adherence and helps avoid hospitalization due to adherence failures. Keeping patients on course and out of the hospital can reduce consumption of single-use products and optimize transportation in terms of hospital stays and through efficient placement of refills and associated consumable purchases.

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(1) Brown, M. T., & Bussell, J. K. (2011). Medication adherence: WHO cares?. Mayo Clinic proceedings, 86(4), 304–314. https://doi-org.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/10.4065/mcp.20...

(2) Osterberg, L., & Blaschke, T. (2005). Adherence to Medication. The New England Journal of Medicine, 353, 487-497. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/...

(3) Lee JK, Grace KA, Taylor AJ. Effect of a Pharmacy Care Program on Medication Adherence and Persistence, Blood Pressure, and Low-Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol: A Randomized Controlled Trial. JAMA. 2006;296(21):2563–2571. doi:10.1001/jama.296.21.joc60162

(4) Zagaar, M., Ndefo, U. (2017). Medication Nonadherence in the Latino Population: A Challenge and an Opportunity for Specialized Services. Pharmacy Times (online). Retrieved 3/21/2022 from https://www.pharmacytimes.com/...

MedsManager is software for people with chronic medication or supplement regimens by showing them what health consumables they have on-hand, and when it's time for them to be replaced.

The Graph View shows the supply of each item in terms of days' supply; the progress bar offers a stoplight view of each item (green-yellow-red) and numeric values. The Calendar View displays the expected depletion dates for items with 60 days' supply or fewer.

MedsManager is designed for consumer Microsoft® Windows® devices, like desktops and laptops. The user installs the software on a compatible device and enters information about their regimen -- prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, supplements, and supplies (like diabetes testing supplies). The Personal Edition (PE) will track a total of 30 consumables for up to three people -- a small family. (Based on the success of PE, a future iteration designed for caregivers is planned).

The solution is also designed to promote health literacy by linking to public health information about especially the prescription medications in their regimens, and the conditions their therapies address.

MedsManager is also designed to support multiple languages. Nearly half of the population of Texas, for example, is Hispanic/Latino, with widely ranging states of U.S. cultural assimilation. A great many don't speak English, and aren't likely to seek or trust medical advice from a non-Hispanic/Latino health professional. MedsManager is designed to help bridge this gulf by presenting essential information in the native tongue for underserved populations like these.

From a technical perspective, MedsManager is similar to applications one finds on the Microsoft® Windows® software market:  Designed for download and install, the primary technology powering the system is Microsoft® .NET code. The user's PHI remains encrypted at rest and is decrypted on demand to allow the user to work with it; it is only accessible on the machine that has the software installed, and only by the account that installed it. At no time does VICTORY Codeworks have any access to regimen data of any kind. MedsManager was designed with security at the forefront of every decision.

Currently in testing is support for AI-based information about contraindicative medications, and for three cryptographic programs with companion mobile applications. The user may install and use these programs at their option.

Because of its dependency on the Windows® operating system and certain specialized components thereof, MedsManager may not be installed on computers located in countries under embargo.

MedsManager is intended to directly and meaningfully improve the lives of people with chronic medication regimens -- which includes about half of the U.S. population over 40 years of age. To be blunt, Americans are lousy at regimen adherence -- that is, taking the medications they're supposed to take at the frequency and quantity stipulated in the regimen. 

https://medium.com/@tony_91202...

Regimen adherence is especially important for patients suffering from rare illnesses, and can be a critical factor in their diagnostic journey.

MedsManager was designed with mature and senior adults in mind -- groups
for whom regimen nonadherence is increasing or significant. It is intended for use by mature adults and caregivers (including mature children of seniors) to provide real-time projections of health consumables for themselves or the people they support.

MedsManager was built to address three main needs:

• To improve regimen adherence among those assigned chronic medication therapies, thereby reducing costs associated with healthcare -- particularly where hospitalization is concerned

• To enrich the users' heath literacy by providing links to public information about their medications, including explanations of the role each plays in their therapies, which should also improve regimen adherence;

• To remove linguistic and cultural barriers to regimen adherence and health literacy by presenting information in the users' native language.

These improvements to the diagnostic journey can have a significant compound effect when considered at scale. MedsManager promotes better patient outcomes through regimen adherence and helps avoid hospitalization due to adherence failures. Keeping patients on course and out of the hospital can reduce consumption of single-use products and optimize transportation in terms of hospital stays and through efficient placement of refills and associated consumable purchases.

Plato first pointed out that infamous relationship between necessity and invention. Every aspect of MedsManager is a function of a need I perceived as I struggled to “stay on top of” my and my family’s various healthcare  consumables. It didn’t take long to realize the potential for this to help others.

I am sensitive to the needs of the Hispanic and Latino populations here. Most of my daughters’ friends are Latino, from families of varying English proficiency. I lived in the Republic of Panama for a few years; I delight in living where I can speak both languages. Many Hispanics and Latinos shy away from the U.S. healthcare system, particularly if their healthcare providers do not identify with Hispanic or Latino cultures. I want to help correct this by offering my software in both English and Spanish.

Health literacy is also a great concern. Personally, I can name my medications, but I can’t tell you what they’re for. Health literacy is even more important in Hispanic and Latino populations for reasons previously mentioned. This is why I wanted to be certain to connect MedsManager to reliable public and AI-driven information in both English and Spanish.

Americans spent nearly $1400 per person on prescription medication in 2020, making prescription medications worth nearly $350BB of a $539BB industry that year. (1) (2) (3) (4)  Currently, nearly half of Americans have taken at least one prescription medicine within the preceding month. (5) I cannot be unique in recognizing the need for a product like this.

So it's a combination of research, consultation, location and situational awareness that drives me to build and promote MedsManager. As a military veteran subjected to toxic exposure, I manage multiple medications for myself; as a parent of a child with special needs, I must also manage myriad medications for my daughter.

But more than anything else, I think I’m the right person to deliver this solution because I care about it very, very much.

This product is actually about my love for my shipmates; friends far and wide who suffer like I do.  I built MedsManager for everyone, but this is, above all, my gift to the people I’ve known over my military career. My deepest and greatest sorrow lies in the notion many of us share the same fate. MedsManager is how I can help the ones most important to me.

Passion, then, must summarize my response.

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    (1) Statista. (2022, February 18). Pharmaceutical spending per capita in selected countries 2020. Retrieved March 20, 2022, from https://www-statista-com.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/stati...

    (2)  Health resources - Pharmaceutical spending - OECD Data. (n.d.). theOECD. Retrieved March 21, 2022, from https://data.oecd.org/healthre...

    (3) Statista. (2022, January 14). Prescription drug expenditure in the U.S. 1960–2020. Retrieved March 21, 2022, from https://www-statista-com.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/stati...

    (4) Statista. (2021, September 20). U.S. total medicine spending 2002–2020. Retrieved March 21, 2022, from https://www-statista-com.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/stati...

    (5) Statista. (2021, March 11). Total U.S. population with usage of prescription drugs within 30 days 1988–2018. Retrieved March 21, 2022, from https://www-statista-com.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/stati...

The 2023 Horizon Prize can help me overcome several barriers in bringing MedsManager to market:

Financial: Marketing will be a very high (and very expensive) priority in "priming the pump" to get sales going (see also: Market barriers). A second priority will be bringing on bilingual contractors in customer service/support roles.

Legal: A portion of the prize will be earmarked for trademark registration and other legal processes to grow and protect the business.

Market barriers: A portion of the prize will be earmarked for marketing to the Hispanic/Latino community -- that means Spanish language advertising in periodicals, on television, et cetera. It's not enough to support Spanish-speaking people if I'm not reaching a Spanish-speaking user base.

I moved to Texas nearly five years ago to take a job in Coppell, a small city in the northwest corner of Dallas County. Dallas is about 27% Hispanic/Latino*, which is far lower than the percentage of Hispanic/Latino Texans overall.

In this small town, I'm probably one of only a handful of Spanish-speaking whites. I learned Spanish when I lived in South Florida, and lived in the Republic of Panama for a time (people I would meet would be confused about how a white kid was in Panama speaking Cuban Spanish). Here, when I speak Spanish to native speakers, they all act really surprised -- and that makes me sad. My daughter has several Hispanic/Latina friends and it's fair to say their families have a bountiful distrust of whites. My daughter and I are working to change that.

So, that's community in one sense.

In a much larger sense, I am a part of a very large community of people with chronic medication therapies. To me, this is the sense of community that really matters when you're talking about building software to help track personal supplies of health consumables, from supplements and medications through to diabetes lancets and other supplies. While I was in Panama, I contracted several ailments known to be associated with exposure to toxins from defoliants and insecticides. For my age, I feel I have a significant medication regimen, and adherence is important to me. I find it can be difficult to stay on top of them all -- to keep track of which I'm running low on, what I need to reorder, or even which medications do what: these are the reasons I built MedsManager. I don't just want to be connected to the "Sprayed and Betrayed" community through ailments -- I want to provide a solution that will fit the needs and educate the community, with the potential to impact the high cost of medical care caused by entirely preventable hospitalizations and the high degree of waste from people simply not adhering to their regimens.

As a function of membership in this larger community, I have become very active in a movement to get the Veterans' Administration to recognize the health conditions acquired by U.S. veterans of service in the Panama Canal Zone as being service connected. Bills have been introduced in the last two congresses to right these wrongs. H.R. 5026, of the 117th Congress, did not leave the House of Representatives. I am working toward a more positive outcome for H.R. 2447 of the 118th Congress. Apart from calling the D.C. offices of key representatives, I have established a website -- https://hr2447.com -- to give my brothers and sisters a voice, and to educate Congress on the issues at hand. As of this writing, we have 22 cosponsors for the bill. My efforts with 2447.com are not directly related to MedsManager per se, but I intend to offer the software to Panama veterans at a handsome discount once its ready for prime-time.

*Only 3% of Hispanics/Latinos even know what "Latinx" means; the term has no currency.

Using MedsManager can improve medication regimen adherence, which can translate into improved response to those therapies and better experiences on the diagnostic journey.  MedsManager can help avoid negative experiences like hospitalizations and wasteful consumption of single-use hospital items and transportation resources.



INNOVATION

MedsManager offers the power to monitor health consumables in a new and simple way. The user is free to make decisions about which data to track and how. All data is completely encrypted at rest, and cannot be accessed by or transmitted to VICTORY Codeworks. Currently in testing is an AI-based contraindications capability.



MedsManager isn't about changing a market: it's about creating one. MedsManager is the only health consumables inventory software on the B2C market.



SUSTAINABILITY

The software is sustainable insofar as any software is sustainable: it must be supported by a device and its operating system.  In terms of manufacture, I am proud to say that the software was produced with 100% green energy (see https://www.victorycodeworks.com/esg/), and is designed for delivery via download. No discs. No plastic.



BROADER IMPACT

Broader impact may be measured on patient outcomes and on impact on waste, including single-use medical waste and in transportation and labor waste.

MedsManager promotes JIT acquisition of health consumables. A patient using MedsManager can attain regimen adherence and remain out of the hospital. Think of the money and resources that saves. The energy spent on purchasing, preparing, transporting health consumables needlessly purchased because their inventory is unknown (how many bottles of ketchup do you have in your pantry?) -- can also be reduced dramatically with MedsManager. These resources can be conserved to service others with timely needs.



THINKING BIGGER

Can you imagine if, say, a hospital were to obtain licenses for a group of patients with chronic medication therapies, and then monitor the recovery progress of that group compared to a control? What if that group did so well, and the results were published in a medical journal... then others reproduced the study... and eventually, the health insurance industry took notice? Now we’re talking about changes to how insurers gatekeep healthcare for the majority of Americans.



If MedsManager Personal Edition (PE) does well in the market, my plan is to introduce a Small Business Edition (SBE) designed to support caregivers, with expanded support for people (PE supports three) and healthcare consumables (PE supports 30), and probably a more expansive role for AI. My surmise is that an SBE may require some changes in how data is persisted and recalled, because it should persist data for many more people and a great many more consumables.  But with an ability for healthcare providers to view their patients’ inventories, suddenly the wild notion of changes to health insurance begin to come into focus.

Our impact goals are:

1. To improve adherence to prescription medication therapies
2. To increase health literacy among patients and their care providers

Collection of metadata and licensee participation in surveys may suggest how well these objectives are being met, because HIPAA regulations will not permit a software company more direct methods of evaluation.

In the future -- in particular, with the Small Business Edition -- I hope to collect anonymous information to answer our impact goals through partnership with primary care physicians and other healthcare organizations. More information on this follows.

As a software company, measuring regimen adherence and health literacy in some direct manner (e.g., through examination of medical records and interviews with physicians) is simply not possible, but I could perhaps approach meaningful data through the collection of anonymous metadata and the use of customer surveys, or through partnership with primary care physicians.

DATA COLLECTION

For example, MedsManager is capable of recording counts of the number of times it has been opened, the number of times any info link has been clicked, and the number of times any consumable item quantity increases. Data like this could be useful in tracking how often the product is used over a specific time period, whether the public health data is being consulted, and whether refills are being tracked. Aggregated results like these, expressed as a ratio of licenses issued, would present overall rate of use (suggesting adherence) and the relative value of those public links (suggesting health literacy).

SURVEY INFORMATION

Probably the next best means I have is through customer surveys. Licensees who opt to participate could be asked questions pertaining to their perceptions of the benefit they receive from the software. Changes or enhancements to the software could be driven by respondents' appetites.

OTHER POTENTIAL AVENUES

Perhaps in the future VICTORY Codeworks could survey healthcare providers to periodically collect generalized observations about an unidentified patient's trajectory at intervals while MedsManager is in use: "Have you seen improvement while the patient used the software?" "Do you believe, based on your observations, that the patient is compliant with his/her/their medication regimen?" "Do you believe the patient was compliant with his/her/their medication regimen prior to using MedsManager?" -- such an approach will require some refinement, a means of engaging healthcare professionals in the sales process or through the user, and asking them to report the anonymized information described above, perhaps via a simple form.

OVERVIEW

MedsManager fortifies medication regimen adherence by helping to ensure personal health consumables remain on hand. The software removes the mystery of inventory information, anticipates depletion dates, and offers summaries and electronic reminders to support inventory maintenance.

MedsManager promotes health literacy by linking public health information to prescription consumables, giving the user direct access to information about their prescriptions and diagnoses and enhancing their ability to make health decisions.

Medication therapy adherence and health literacy are particularly
important in the diagnostic journey for the percentage of the U.S. Latino population inexperienced with the English language. MedsManager offers Spanish language support for especially this group.

THEORY OF CHANGE

Once the software is installed and data for the health consumables is entered, the user immediately sees current inventory, including what is low; learns about warnings for medications, and has access to public health information about the prescription medications in the inventory. This creates four outcomes: The user can now observe their medication regimen in a language they understand; The user can efficiently act on low inventory items because the user is aware of the state of their inventory; the user's health and health literacy can improve through changes to diet because the user is aware of medication warnings; the user's health and health literacy can improve through proper dosage.

Through continued use of the software, including updating inventory, the user can immediately see the adjusted current inventory, yielding three outcomes: The user can compare actual inventory to the software forecast and determine if medication is missing (actual inventory is significantly LOWER than forecast) or if they're forgetting to take the medication (actual inventory is significantly HIGHER than forecast); the user may become aware of theft; the user's health can improve through proper dosage.

The most important longer-term outcomes, through sustained use of the software, is the user's health can improve through medication regimen adherence, and the user's health literacy can improve (through only sustained use of the software, through accessing the public health data, or a combination of the two).

MedsManager is developed by VICTORY Codeworks, LLC as Microsoft® Windows® software, programmed in Microsoft® .NET, using a modern object oriented .NET programming language in Windows Forms. The application's entire payload is about 35 MB, which makes it suitable for delivery via download to a consumer market Windows® device. (The software was developed on a standard laptop with an Intel Core® i5 processor, and is regularly tested on a similar machines.)

The program uses specialized libraries supporting representational state transfer (REST) to exchange data with software licensing service endpoints, and cryptographic libraries for securing settings and consumables data (and backups) while not in use.

Because of the dependency on Microsoft's cryptographic libraries,
MedsManager is tethered to Windows® in terms of distribution:
MedsManager may not be distributed or conveyed in any way to nations or
areas under U.S.
embargo.

The program is also testing an AI-driven contraindications feature using a specialized library and asynchronous Internet communication.

Currently in development is potential support for three cryptographic programs with both desktop and mobile applications, for the purpose of allowing an image of the graph to be decrypted and displayed on a mobile device -- so the user can safely access offline inventory data on the go.

One full-time. That's me. (Hi!)

One business mentor.

Over 1 year.

VICTORY requires inclusion to succeed. There is no place for intolerance or inequality of any kind at VICTORY.

My company, VICTORY Codeworks, is a single-person LLC. I am amazingly lucky to have as an advisor a very bright man with whom I served in the Navy. Our ethnic origins differ:

I intend to take on support staff, especially members of the Hispanic/Latino community who are fluent in Spanish and identify culturally as Hispanic/Latino (a marginalized group). My customers deserve support they can trust, and I expect their relationship with my software (and the U.S. healthcare system) to be initially tenuous. I want these customers to feel satisfied and encouraged to embrace and explore their medication regimens and learn about their conditions, and my research indicates a non-Hispanic /non-Latino support agent will not be as impactful in that critical role. My customers deserve to speak with people who are culturally recognizable and fluent in their language to assist them with any software questions or trouble they may encounter.

Over time, I expect the company to grow. At the outset, I anticipate contract relationships with remote support personnel. I hope to grow the business to accommodate full-time employees --  remotely at first, then later, dare I hope, I'd love to welcome them to an office suite.

See screenshot below.

See screenshot above.

The business model for VICTORY Codeworks, LLC is entrepreneur support: selling products and advanced support directly to customers, and seeking partner brand deals and grants wherever it makes sense.

Most of the development investment in MedsManager itself has already been made (via Paid-In Capital); the plan now is to test and refine until I feel comfortable introducing the product to market, and to invest in other ways of raising capital.

I've spent the last 16 months developing the software by myself on my personal time, and started the company using personal income. The same is true for the company and product websites. Everything to this point is funded by Paid-In Capital. Momentum has slowed since my wife lost her job in February.

Revenue In my first year was ($5,662.27). I had no income.

We anticipate a market size of about $42BB, with nearly 224MM prospective customers.

MedsManager has no competitors in its B2C space.

If I may offer a word or two about the potential for success of the solution: MedsManager was a semifinalist in the 2022 Care Economy Challenge, placing within the top 50 of over 1,100 solutions from 117 countries and 46 Native Tribes. Please visit https://www.medsmanager.info/p... for more information.