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>> There are apps in use now that monitor drug use for psychiatric patients by trying to detect that a drug was ingested using a sensor inside the pill that can

• onetimeusename 6y ago
  That particular way of gaming it won't work. The sensor inside the pill is a tiny logic circuit that transmits a signal throughout the patient's body. The current comes from basically building a battery out of the patient's stomach with the polar molecules in hydrochloric acid. The current contains some data and the worn patch detects the tiny sine wave. It would be difficult to game this but it is still possible. The app itself could be broken for example. I think the FDA approval for this device assumes the patient actually takes the medicine so no guarantees are made if the patient doesn't. To tie this to my point, adding in electronic reporting and measuring opens up a number of possible ways of getting false data during a trial so I think it would be difficult to manage that. For example, in oncology trials, monitoring for adverse events and cancer progression might involve blood draws for analysis and maybe a monthly progression scan. These types of things are much easier controlled at a central location. Although not all trials are the same and electronic monitoring and reporting seems to have a lot of potential for drug usage and trials.