'Laura' makes digital health coaching personal

Laura, a computer-generated character, raises and knits her eyebrows, nods her head ever so gently, and almost seems to sigh as she commiserates with a patient over how challenging it is to remember to take pills or get out for a walk. A virtual health coach, she asks questions of patients and responds empathetically and encouragingly to their answers.

Bickmore’s creation of Laura puts this Northeastern University professor at the forefront of growing attempts to build technology to help people stick to health regimens and increase the flow of information between health care providers and patients. The health care industry may soon turn to programs like Bickmore’s — which is still in the research phase — to augment the personalized attention patients get.

With an aging population of baby boomers and not enough health care professionals to meet their needs, virtual coaches like Laura may one day, Bickmore hopes, be able to bridge the gap — and then some. After all, even if there were enough health care professionals to go around, nurses don’t remind people to take their pills every day and few people can afford personal trainers.

The benefits of virtual coaches and other interventions could go far beyond the health of the individual patient, innovators say. By keeping patients on their medication and physically active, virtual coaches and other technological innovations could also reduce hospital admissions and illness, and, as a result, cut health care costs. Studies suggest, for instance, that at least half of schizophrenics at some point fail to take their medication as prescribed.

Researchers are also experimenting with tailored voice messages delivered via phone and with Internet sites, sometimes linked with chat groups, to help people exercise or quit smoking. There’s also a new portable pill box, called Med-eMonitor, that not only sounds a chime when it is time to take a pill, but can sense if the patient took the pill out of the box, and it has a screen that can ask the patient questions. The device hooks up to a phone line and sends data to trained health coaches who can send patients messages or contact their doctor.

The complexity of today’s medical regimens — which can require patients to take a half-dozen or more pills per day — makes the high-tech approach particularly relevant.

Continue to read article on Laure at Boston.com