Connecting caregivers with their patients
TRILLIO IN PISA AND TRIESTE HOSPITALS (ITALY) SOLVES THE PROBLEM OF POOR THERAPY ADERENCE
Therapy adherence defines how patients respect their doctors’ prescriptions.
In particular, in the presence of chronic diseases it is very important to strictly follow the treatments that are prescribed, otherwise the consequences can be very serious (hospitalization) or even worse!
It would seem obvious but the reality of the facts, numbers in hand, photographs a decidedly worrying scenario.
In the 2003 report, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated that "increasing the effectiveness of adherence to therapy could have a much greater impact on the health of the population than any specific medical improvement". Poor adherence to therapy would cause 194,500 deaths per year in Europe and it is estimated that it costs about 125 billion euros / year in Europe and 300 billion dollars / year in the United States. (1)
The real problem of poor adherence is behavioral and is not related to a specific disease: patients do not strictly follow their doctors' prescriptions simply because they underestimate the consequences and because no one is able to verify if they are taking their medications regularly. and warn them of the consequences in case of forgetfulness.
The Trillìo project was created to solve this problem and from day one the entire development team had only one word in mind: "simplicity".
Hence the Trillìo solution as it is today. A platform for a caregiver connected to an IoT ("Internet of Things") connected device that offers the simplest experience ever: that of an alarm clock, so easily usable by patients of any age. Able to send alerts to family members in case of an untaken medication to let them take immediate actions and remember them the importance of strictly following the doctor's instructions to avoid extreme consequences.
Once industrialized, the Trillìo project received funding from the European Community under the Horizon 2020 program and was validated with several projects (to name a couple: public health in the city of Prague, Red Cross in Spain).
In 2022, thanks to the sponsorship of Novartis Italia, Trillìo began distribution in the cardiology departments of the Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Pisana (Cisanello Hospital in Pisa) and of the Hospital Maggiore in Trieste by medical staff to heart failure patients.
Heart failure is a condition characterized by a deterioration in the function of the heart such that it is unable to contract (systole) and / or release (diastole) adequately to pump enough blood to meet the body's needs and is the first hospitalization cause for people over 65, also for this reason it is considered a public health problem of enormous importance. (2)
Trillìo project in Pisa and Trieste hospitals has different objectives. Doctors have an innovative tool to support patients' compliance with prescriptions and reporting that can determine a risk factor also based on adherence to therapy, a useful and easy-to-use device for the patients and help for families to take actions in real time in case of non-compliance with the prescriptions.
In addition to such qualitative aspects, for which we have received excellent feedback from the different stakeholders, it is also important to measure a quantitative aspect, that is average adherence level.
According to the World Health Organization, a great number of reports have shown that, in industrialized countries, adherence to treatments by patients with chronic diseases is just 50%. (3)
After the first three months of use, the adherence level of patients using Trillìo is 95%, and about 60% of them have an adherence level greater than 98%.
This is an amazing result, both for the project and for the social impact in terms of human lives and in economic terms.
Having arrived this far and being able to tell about such results is a real team game: La Comanda Trillìo Health team for having developed an innovative and technological solution, Novartis Italia for having believed in the solution and having created the conditions to bring it into field, the doctors and nurses of the hospitals of Pisa and Trieste for having dedicated part of their precious time to adopt Trillìo and distribute it to their patients, the patients themselves who are using it and who are basically the first to benefit from it together with their families.
Riferimenti:
(1) https://www.giornaledicardiologia.it/archivio/1696/articoli/18514/
(3) https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/42682/9241545992_ita.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
