Waterloo Pharmacy researchers collaborate with QRxDigital to make prescriptions easier to understand
Being able to understand the medications you take should be a given. However, many people struggle to understand what to expect from the medications they’re taking and how to take them effectively.
Waterloo’s clinical associate professor, Dr. Tejal Patel, has teamed up with QRxDigital to include QR codes on medication bottles that link to an instructional video that patients can view at home. This seemingly small addition makes a big impact in improving patient knowledge about their medications and ultimately increases medication adherence.
Dr. Sammu Dhaliwall, a hospital pharmacist and relief community pharmacist, along with community pharmacist Navdeep Singh, worked together to create QR-coded medication counselling videos to make medication taking more accessible. Additionally, the pharmacists noticed an increase in diversity in the population and the patients they serve whose first language is not English. As a result, QRxDigital was formed alongside two other founders to bring this idea to the tech space and to create videos in other languages. What they needed next was a researcher to run the research study — this is where Patel’s team came in.
Read more on Waterloo News.
My research teams’ whole intention is to investigate the appropriateness and acceptability of each video. We will measure these factors to improve the videos further and ensure they are culturally appropriate.