Rampant prescription drug abuse threatens health care. Stories about opioid abuse, addiction, and overdoses fill news reports. Misuse of prescription medication isn’t new. Patience compliance with all forms of care, treatment, and medication counts among the medical community’s top healthcare challenges.

A company in Cleveland, Ohio is developing a wearable to assist with patient prescription drug compliance. IMed MD founder and president Adam Stachler says its eponymous prescription management system has three goals: control prescription dispersal, improve outcomes, and improve lives. The iMed MD system has two components: a device and a third party software platform. The iMed device stores prescription drugs with access controlled by a biometric lock opened with the patient’s thumbprint.  The physician, pharmacist, and patient all use Acuity’s web-based patient management platform. Still in early development, the device holds up to 180 pills and transmits patient access and pill dispersal to the Acuity platform.

It’s very early days for iMed MD. Biometric access and wireless compliance reporting that involves physicians, pharmacists, and patients sounds like a great idea if the Ohio enterprise gets the funding for further development.