ATU736 – Medminder Pharmacy Updates with Jessica Giguere

Hi, I’m Jessica Giguere, the Strategic Account Director at MedMinder, and this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello, and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up to date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana.

Welcome to episode 736 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on the 4th of July, 2025. Today, we’re super excited to welcome Jessica Giguere from MedMinder with some updates and to tell us all about it. We’ve also got a story about the new accessibility features coming out from Apple. So without any further ado folks, let’s go ahead and get on with the show.

Listeners, earlier this year, Apple came out with a list of new accessibility features that’ll be coming out sometime later this year. I’ve got a few friends I know that are using kind of the beta version of the new updated Apple Operating System, and they’ve got a few thoughts. And of course, some of these things aren’t up and fully working yet. And while the liquid glass has proved some major accessibility issues, at least it looks pretty, but apparently some of the accessibility features really don’t fit with it. I’m sure hopefully those will be fixed by the time everything comes out. But if you have not seen some of the new accessibility features coming out, we’ll do a quick rundown. I’ll put a link to the Apple’s newsroom over in the show notes so that you can check them out. Also, if you can, reach out, tell us what you’re most excited about from these new accessibility features. Remember, you can email us at Tech@Eastersealscrossroads.org, or call our listener line at (317) 721-7124.

So as we look at the new accessibility features coming, one of the really cool ones I think is the accessibility nutrition labels. Now, I’m not going to lie, when I first read about this, I thought it was accessible nutrition labels like you see on the back of a can of food or a bag of chips or something like that. But much like nutrition labels kind of show you what all’s in food, these accessibility nutrition labels will tell you what accessibility features work on an app. So if I rely on certain things, a voiceover, contrast, captions, something like that, I should be able to look at supported features and find out if the app supports these and works well with them. So it gives me a really great tool to vet apps before I even have to download them and figure out whether they work or not.

The new magnifier for Mac sounds pretty darn fun. This actually uses your iPhone camera as kind of a distance viewing camera for your Mac. Or you can also use it for kind of up close, so think about setting it on a little stand and putting a piece of paper, a document, a book under it, and then have that magnified on the screen of my MacBook, with all kinds of different contrast as well as magnification settings. So, a very cool way to use those two tools together to really help with access for folks. And there’s a lot of other cool features involved with that as well.

There’s also some new Braille tools, and from what it tells me here, it can actually turn the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision Pro into a full-featured Braille note taker. I don’t know if I’d quite go that far, but it is pretty cool that at least some of the Braille access and devices are coming here. As we know, the iPhone, the iPad have been great tools for individuals with visual impairments for quite some time. So, I’m excited to see what exactly that looks like and how that’s able to work.

Accessibility Reader is going to be a system-wide reading mode to make everything a little bit easier to read, to change the screen size, the font, the color, really, tons of different information, and I believe you can do it in pretty much any app. So instead of having to pull your information and put it into a certain app or something to get those features, you can easily just do that from every single app.

I’m excited for the live captions on the Apple Watch. So this, if you’re using live listen with your phone, you could put your phone somewhere, get that information sent to your AirPods, and then actually have live captions come up on your Apple Watch as you’re having that conversation. So you can get that auditory sound of the conversation amplified over to your AirPods, as well as a transcript of it to really help with understanding.

There’s tons of other features, things for the Vision Pro to kind of help with magnification and some other viewing things. Personal voice, instead of having to read for like 15 minutes, you’d only record 10 recorded phases and it can do everything that personal voice could do. Eye tracking is going to do a little bit more on there, and be a little bit easier to control. Head tracking that’ll allow you to use your iPhone and iPad with head movements. They’ve added switch control for brain computer interfaces, changes to assistive access, music, haptics, all kinds of stuff. And sound recognition also gets name recognition in there as well. So, it’s not even all of them.

And then another one that I think is very, very exciting and I want to see how it rolls out, is something called share accessibility settings. And with this you can temporarily share your accessibility settings with another iPhone or iPad and the thought is, you could do this on public kiosks. So, I really want to go test that out and see if it’s that easy to just bring your device over to a kiosk and be able to use it.

I suppose if you do have a beta version of the newest iOS, what are your thoughts on these new accessibility features? Or if you don’t, which ones are you excited about or which ones are you really looking forward to trying? I know we’re definitely looking forward to them and can’t wait to try them out here.

Listeners, we were lucky enough to have Jessica Giguere from MedMinder on this show about 100 episodes ago, and we are super excited to welcome her back to learn more about MedMinder, MedMinder Pharmacy, and hear about any exciting updates that they might have. Jessica, welcome back to the show.

Thanks, Josh.

Yeah, I am excited to get into everything, but before we do that, for folks who maybe didn’t hear you on the show before, could you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

Sure. So my name’s Jessica, and I’ve been in the healthcare industry for over 25 years helping manage members in the community with physical, mental health, cognitive impairment, to live better in their communities and live their best lives.

Awesome, and we know that now that has led you to MedMinder Pharmacy. So I guess start us off with kind of just big picture. What is MedMinder Pharmacy?

Yeah, so MedMinder is a full assist modular pharmacy and assistive technology digital platform. What really separates us from other technology support systems is we can provide real-time adherence data. So when you talk about fully assisting person-centered care and remote support, MedMinder not only offers a comprehensive pharmacy that can deliver medications, with an assistive technology device that can remind members in the community to take their medication only at the right time and right day of their dose. It’s very customizable. So with any type of disability, you can voice record a command, you can have a beeping modification, and it goes on for about two hours. So if the member doesn’t take their meds after an hour and a half, anyone involved with their care would get a notification.

Oh, nice.

The device also has a remote locking feature. So again, the member can only access the right compartment at the right time. Every interaction around the device is secured and captured on our cloud for real-time visibility and preventative interactions. The device runs off of wifi and cellular data, making it very convenient for members that are in rural areas or don’t have great connections.

Again, what separates MedMinder is that we have a new feature and through our tablet you can actually video call a member through the tablet’s mobile app. So we have a mobile app on our phone that can be downloaded and you would call a member to either have a great engagement, to watch someone actually physically take their medication, and visibly know that they’ve taken it. So our device has sensors underneath each compartment capturing every single interaction with timestamped. And our devices are so secure that someone has to be authorized to log into the platform.

So the devices platform is a very easy, structured platform that you can log into via the tablet, the desktop, or your mobile app, and you can visibly see every interaction, as I mentioned earlier. These reports are printable, we have open APIs that remote support teams can log into and again, have a preventative outlook on the members’ individual requirements or medication management. We also have surveys through the mobile tablet. So if you’re looking to manage a cohort of members that have chronic comorbidities, some mental health or behavioral health conditions, you can have anything uploaded onto the screen, including visual pictures or anything to make their experience more engaging for the member.

The other new features we incorporated was an eMAR. So if there’s a group home setting or individual setting, it not only supports the members, but it supports the staff. We have learned that in one of our assisted technology programs, they went from a year ago without the MedMinder, to 168 medication errors, and since they’ve been on the MedMinder for a year, they’ve only had three, and that was due to staffing documentation. So that’s to give you some insight to how well the device will reduce medication errors, which will reduce hospitalizations and cost of care throughout the industry. So we’re really trying to scale and expand our exposure because not only do you have remote medication support in the homes, and this is where healthcare is going, is trying to support members in their communities and reduce these hospitalizations. And a member’s not feeling well, we have a locking component that will ensure the members are only taking their medications at the right time.

Nice, nice, and there’s a lot of stuff to unpack there, so we’re going to try to get through it all, but first of all, just kudos to go from a 160-plus kind of mistakes, things that come up and everything else, down to three, is just an amazing, amazing, turnaround. I guess let’s start off with just, I know this is always harder on a podcast because we don’t have a visual of it, but can you describe the medication device, the one that actually kind of dispenses everything? Can you describe that to the listeners?

Yeah, so it sort of looks like a mini laptop, if you will. And the device was designed 17 years ago by our founder at MIT, but really aesthetically through in-home care nursing, working with developmental disability and physical conditions to support them in their homes. So they would transition from an inpatient rehab to home, and this designer said, “I have this great concept, but I really need some help.” And so it was aesthetically designed, quite compartments or kind of large and easily accessible for a member that has some dexterity issues or visual or hearing impairment, that they’re able to really be able to manipulate the compartments and really be able to see what’s going on.

Nice, nice. And then I know there’s sort of a screen on it as well, is that correct?

Yeah, so the tablet comes with it. One thing I just want to mention is the device is able to accommodate four medication doses per day, but we can also set other pushed out notifications beyond what is in the device. So if a member has an appointment, it can say, “Hey, Josh, it’s time to get ready for your 10:00 doctor’s appointment or hope you’re having a good day.” Right? So those behavioral health encouraged engagements are also very supportive to this community.

Oh yeah, for sure. And before we into the tablet, also love the way that you said I can record the message. Just I know for some folks, just you have so many things talking to you and everything else, so just hearing a kind voice of a friend or a family member or even support staff, that if I’m a little bit more independent maybe doesn’t need to be there quite as much. Having them be able to say, “Take your meds or take the blue ones or take the green.” You know what I mean? And being able to have just that kind of interaction seems to really help some folks as well.

Yeah, especially if someone has cognitive impairment, simple cues from a familiar voice really is helpful. So you can type in any language, you can record a voice in any different language as well, so that’s very helpful to members that speak different languages and it’s a great user experience.

For sure, for sure, or maybe even just use different words to describe things, things that folks can understand a little bit better or just more commonplace or a little bit easier for them. You were going to talk a little bit about the information on the tablet, so I’ll let you go along with that before I interrupt you again.

Sure. So the tablet’s very different, in the sense that you can use it for a telehealth engagement. Right? You can call a member through the mobile app and it’s like a FaceTime type of engagement, and you can again, engage with the member, watch them take a medication, assist them with an insulin or an inhaler, and again, just see how that member’s doing today and get a feel of them and it’s just extra engagement. The tablet also pushes out survey messages or just preventative messages. How are you feeling today? Happy, mad, sad? If you want an extra check, did you take your meds, yes or no? So, and that data gets pushed through other organizations that are looking for it, again, for preventative measures. It also has a screen saver ability to upload photos. So again, familiar faces, cats, pictures. One woman loved LeBron James and I had a slideshow of him on there. So it’s really fun engagement when the member gets up, they can kind of visually see what makes them happy.

Nice, nice, and that’s so helpful. Yeah, because like you said, it’s a little bit more engagement than just my pill machine, I guess, or something of that sort. Something that actually is a little bit more enjoyable to interact with than just something that it’s more of a, I don’t want to say burden, but something that I have to do every day and it’s not really my choice.

Right. I mean, I think that the biggest part here is the combination of pharmacy use and ease for families, for the member. We prepackage all the medications according to their providers’ recommendations and schedule. Take a holistic approach and make sure there’s no duplications of medication and you’re getting it from one-stop shop.

The other differentiator is we work with remote support teams that can really support this medication adherence monitoring and have a one-stop shop here that you can get all of the data visibly in reports through our platform. And that’s very unique to have this one-stop shop and show this actionable adherence metrics. And in the end of the day, you’re saving costs on supporting staff or gaps in staffing and care. And the metrics of cost savings at the end of the year is really what our platform is designed to do, support the funding and the waivers, so members are really seeing how they’re doing and what these organizations are really paying for and saving. And that’s a big, big benefit to this program.

Oh, for sure. Just having all that information in the same place. So the fact that you’re working along with the remote support as opposed to just another piece of data I have to look at or I have to try to interpret, but no, that just becomes part of the information that I’m already getting. So as the loved one or as the even kind of support staff or anything, I have all that in, to really simplify, a one handy dandy kind of report to know that’s all working.

Jessica, just so I don’t jump over it too much. So just talking about the pharmacy a little bit. You said everything’s kind of all divided up and stuff. Does that come just straight from the doctor, from my doctor, my medical provider and stuff? Does that come through a family member or a different kind of service, or how does that portion work?

So, yeah, as I mentioned, it’s a one-stop shop, really a fully comprehensive platform. We have our own pharmacy at MedMinder, and we’re able to ship medications pre-packaged, according to the provider’s prescriptions. And we set it up for the providers times of day and dose, and our pharmacy will set that up through our platform, what meds they’re taking, and that can be manipulated through the appropriate admin. So we can set it up As far as security-wise, someone would be the account admin of an organization, and then there are people that can get the alerts they didn’t take the med, or they can go in and make changes, voice command, time changes. It’s very customizable towards the organization and you have it right at your fingertips.

Nice, nice. I love that it’s able to be changed and adjusted just probably as plans or treatment plans may be changed without having to go all the way back through the entire system. So that is awesome.

Right, and understanding our population, we’re able to individually organize and coordinate where the medication should be delivered. So for example, if it shouldn’t be right to the member’s home, we can deliver to an organization and have those checkpoints for security. The locking piece to the device is also able to be navigated where we have PRN locking. Some IDD organizations use the devices for PRN use, and so you can actually unlock an individual compartment if the dose is missed.

Very cool. Very, very cool. And then I know you said it works off of wifi and cellular, so you get that information as you need it, pretty much anywhere where those things are available. So, that’s great. Jessica, you probably got a ton of these, but can you tell me a story about someone’s experience using MedMinder Pharmacy, the MedMinder, and everything else?

Yeah, sure. So I had a member referred to us that had some behavioral conditions and wasn’t taking their medications on time, and provider called and said, “This woman really needs some assistance. She’s forgetting her meds, she’s in and out of the hospital for these behaviors. I heard about this solution, can you help me with this?”

So this is when I first started so I have a lot of stories. I started boots on the ground and wanted to see what the device could do, and this woman I walk in, this is actually the LeBron James story. I walk into her apartment and it was like a shrine of LeBron James, and she saw the device, she says, “I don’t really need this, do I?” And I said, “Let’s just try it because your support team really thinks it’d be helpful for you to get on the right regimen and take your meds.” And she was like, “Okay,” so she started using the MedMinder. Loved that LeBron James was on there. That was just it for her. I literally uploaded 20 photos of LeBron James and she just was elated to have her “man” on the screen.

She’s taking her meds as prescribed. I was actually able to log in and check on her because she didn’t have a lot of support. She was independent and obviously there was some in there, but part of what I like to do is just make sure that, our team does as well, is when they start, we follow them for a few weeks and then we have retention to follow them further.

And I was seeing she was taking her meds perfectly and after a month she called me and said, “Jessica, I don’t know if I need this device anymore. I feel so good. I haven’t been in the hospital and everything’s great.” And I said, “You know,” I said, “I think it’s great to try it a little longer because I think it’s working because you’re not having any episodes, you’re not ending up in the hospital and you’re feeling great. So, let’s try this a little further.” So from that interaction, engagement, I started working heavily with the organization that referred her and really just scaled from that experience and she loved it and it saved her a lot of trips to the hospital and some behaviors with staff that were assisting her. So that was one story.

And then there’s so many, but it really has been a tremendous help for care delivery teams and remote support teams that lack staff to be able to go into our platform and see a minute-by-minute, second-by-second real-time overview of what’s going on. And again, is preventative by looking at that real time adherence metrics, right? So, and it can be downloaded and reported and integrated into other systems, which is perfect. So, to really get that hands-on remote support and not have to always rely on staffing and the cost of staffing is a tremendous help to the industry.

Oh, definitely. And I mean, shortages in staffing and everything else that really goes along with that. And I also like that you do have the extra things that can be kind of put on there. How are you feeling today? And stuff like that, because I think that could help just depending on the kind of medication you’re taking. If suddenly it’s not quite working for the depression or the anxiety or the other things that might be going on, I feel like that could almost be seen a little bit sooner or at least seeing some patterns maybe in that kind of way to give even more information to the care team, whatever that might look like.

Well, yeah, I mean, and to your point, how we really initially thought of was this is going to be great for our members to be extremely more independent and live the best lives. But what we found over time is that this was a tool that was also helping staff reduce med errors and just organization, they’re overburdened, there’s human error. And going back to our pharmacy filling the medications, we have a PV2 waiver, which is an automation system through the state that is a 97% accuracy for medication automation. So to have these tools in place and make things more secure, the health plans that are monitoring and managing these comorbidities, for example, diabetes, hypertensive, and cardiovascular members. We’re able to capture all of that data and to show how they’re doing and how well they’re doing and their medical spend has gone down. So we’re really able to capture different disease states. So behavioral health, all of those things that people are compromised with, our platform and data is able to actually show that, those metrics.

Awesome, awesome. Jessica, if our listeners want to find out more, what’s a good way for them to do that?

Yeah, so you can go right on our website to MedMinder.com, www.MedMinder.com, or call me directly (978) 493-2014, or you could email me for more information. Part of my role is to educate, matter expert in this and been doing it six years, love what I do.

Six.

We’re all stem from healthcare and wanting to help people and make their lives better. You can email me at Jessica.Giguere@medminder.com, and that’s MedMinder.com.

Perfect, we will put all that down in the show notes so that folks can check it out for themselves or reach out for even more information. Well, Jessica, thank you so much for coming on today, for reminding us the great things about MedMinder and just talking about the new kind of features and new things that are there to really help folks just be able to be more independent. I mean, really, as we kind of talk on this show, a lot of things with assistive technology, that’s really the goal, is just for individuals to be able to do things on their own, be independent, stay in their home, and be as independent as possible while still staying healthy and happy. So, thank you again.

Thank you so much for having me.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at (317) 721-7124. Send us an email at Tech@Eastersealscrossroads.org, or shoot us a note on Twitter at INDATA Project.

Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation, or InTRAC. You can find out more about InTRAC at relayindiana.com. A special thanks to Nikol Prieto for scheduling our amazing guest and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show was produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners, or this host. This was your Assistive Technology Update. I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.