Janssen Healthcare Innovation today launched Care4Today Mobile Adherence, a secure messaging platform designed to help people comply with treatment regimens through reminders to take medications, refill prescriptions, and visit healthcare providers.

The company, a team within Janssen Research & Development, LLC, also announced a mobile application and website. Janssen Healthcare Innovation is a pharmaceutical unit of Johnson & Johnson.

Medication adherence has long been a problem for many patients (and doctors). One-third of prescriptions are never filled, and patients with chronic conditions are non-compliant about half the time, studies show, resulting in serious health consequences, including delayed recovery, disease relapse, hospitalization and even death. Research has shown that up to 50 percent of patients in the U.S. don’t take their medications as prescribed, and this lack of compliance contributes to approximately 3.5 million hospitalizations and 125,000 deaths annually in the U.S., costing an estimated $290 billion in avoidable medical spending, the press release notes.Working with almost any phone with Web browsing capabilities, regardless of platform or service provider, the Care4Today Mobile Adherence platform can be used for any kind of prescription or over-the-counter medication or nutritional supplement, including, but not limited to, products from the Johnson & Johnson family of companies, according to the press release.

A recent study found that text messaging diabetes and heart patients about taking their medication improved their adherence. According to a story at drugtopics.modernmedicine.com, 91 percent of participants who were on chronic oral anti-diabetes medications did indeed take it, versus 82 percent in the control group, who did not have text message reminders.

“Janssen Healthcare Innovation is developing products and services to transform the patient experience and promote better health outcomes. We have identified improving medication adherence as one of our key initiatives,” said Diego Miralles, M.D., head, Janssen Healthcare Innovation, in the press release. “The Care4Today Mobile Adherence platform can help overcome the number one barrier to consumers taking their medications by providing customized reminders delivered via secure messaging directly to their cell phone, a device that most people carry with them at all times.” The Care4Today Mobile Adherence platform uses secure two-way messaging on web-enabled phones and each self-directed reminder message requires a response that is recorded in the user’s adherence record stored on the company’s secure and privacy-protected website. Users can monitor their adherence record or print it to share with their healthcare provider if desired.But sometimes, more is required. A recent survey found that telephone intervention with glaucoma patients did not improve their adherence to medication.