Estonian Digital Health Series: An Interview with MediKeep
Category: Blog
By Janice
07/04/2017
Hi there, could you tell us a little about MediKeep and your mission as a company? Who are the brains behind MediKeep, and what are their backgrounds?
MediKeep is a company building home medicine management app for everybody who needs to get notified or track their supplements and health.
CEO of MediKeep is Kerti Alev, freelancer designer and mother for two kids. MediKeep idea came from her own need - to have digital inventory of her med box due to small children and need to give or take different meds or supplements. It was not needed for any chronic disease, but the opposite - to stay healthy. It has been always MediKeep's main mission.
But our users are also people with chronic diseases as the same mission applies to them.
In the future MediKeep will try to solve the problem around personal medicine. To give suggestions about the supplements, ingredients and dosages that suit one person the best, based on their DNA, it could lead to major changes in our life.
Allan Kändmaa is co-founder and advisor of the company and has a great experience in medical technology development. MediKeep also has 2 developers currently, for iOS and Android and small marketing, finances team.
MediKeep is designed to help keep track of prescriptions, and importantly, keep doctors up to date with their patients symptoms and medication. How does this technology work?
Yes, it is possible for Estonians to see their e-prescriptions if they authenticate with their mobileID. They can add purchased medicine to their inventory and set reminders to take the medicine. In Estonia we are also building a complete database about the products and information related to the packages like quantities and med-info-leaflets. It is a great challenge, as every country has their own medicines and barcodes related to the package boxes. Also people prefer to read the medicine information in their mother language.
People tend to think that information related to the technology and medicine databases is already out there, somewhere and should work from the glimpse, but it is actually not so simple. MediKeep has taken the challenge to add every medicine and package out there in the world and make it public for the audience, as we strongly believe that medicine information should be available for everyone. Users who add different medicines to our databases are helping us to achieve that goal.
We also respect peoples private data and keep it separate from any general information. E-prescription information is only available in persons own smartphone for a short period.
But what comes to the doctor and patient relationship then, keeping track of the home medicine is one thing. But MediKeep also shortens the time spent at the doctors cabinet as user can make notes to MediKeep health diary and just share the information with the doc at the visit. We all know how important is accurate tracking and notes about health issues. If we do not store them somehow, important information could get lost. The diary also auto logs all the medication taken or not taken with the help of the MediKeep app.
Reminders to take medicine, expire dates and refills are also important functions within the app. We are working hard to go global with other functions of the app like locate pharmacy and drug-drug interaction check.
MediKeep is already available in Estonia, with all drug barcodes available to be scanned via smartphone, as well as connectivity with doctors and local pharmacies. How long until we can see MediKeep technology within the rest of Europe and the world?
It is the question of financial resources only. As a private startup we are also challenged by this issue.
What are MediKeep’s plans for 2017 and beyond?
To start working on the personal medicine plan, finding new resources for development and start expanding for other countries with our databases.
In the UK and throughout Europe, Estonia is seen as a world leading digital economy with a high innovative capcity. Is this reflected in Estonia’s digital health industry?
Definitely - it is a standard already. We have connected so many different departments on the higher level and the data moves, but now it is the challenge how to open up the government systems for private developers. Bigger, well established companies tend to have a privilege in there and we, startups, still have to struggle our way but the environment to cooperate and connect digital information is outstanding and a lot of people are working on that to make it even better.
Website: http://www.medikeep.eu/
Connected Health Profile: http://connectedhealth.ee/members/medikeep/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/9367353/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/medikeep
To be featured or find out more:
e-mail us on support@companyconnecting.com
call us on 0845 643 5375
Estonian Digital Health Series: An interview with Medikeep first published on Company Connecting February 2017
©Company Connecting
