AN EVALUATION OF A VIRTUAL PILLBOX DESIGNED FOR THE ELDERLY Yin‐Leng THENG, Jason Wen Yau LEE, Paul Victor PATINADAN, Schubert FOO Centre of Social Media Innovations for Communities, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Abstract The advent of technology has changed how healthcare is being perceived. While physicians and other healthcare professionals continue to remain primary care providers, the patient-centred care approach focuses on empowering patients with the autonomy to make informed choices. Drawing upon theories founded in the disciplines of healthcare, social sciences and learning, we constructed the Patient-Alert-Care-Education (PACE) framework with the intention to implement it through CuePBox; a virtual pillbox prototype. The virtual pillbox was designed and specifically developed to address medication adherence issues through exploration via a patient-centred focus of the constructs of “alert”, “care” and “education”. Keywords Virtual pillbox, elderly, chronic illness, mHealth Introduction The increased use of technology has undoubtedly changed how healthcare is being perceived and provided. While physicians and healthcare professionals maintain their role as primary care provisoners, the patient-centred care approach seeks to empower patients with the autonomy to make informed choices based on available information suitable to their needs, preferences, and lifestyles e.g., [1], [2]. As a case example, the development and design rationale of the CuePBox was centred on the elderly suffering from chronic conditions; individuals whom needed to be reminded, encouraged and educated about medication adherence regularly. The CuePBox comprises of 4 main features:- • My Pillbox – Stores all medication records, medication details and information about relevant medication regimens • Progress Report – Tracks and records user’s health statistics such as heart rate, weight and adherence to medication regimen • Calendar – Stores user’s doctoral appointments and easily tracks medication adherence on a daily basis • My Contacts – Address book for users to communicate with caregivers and family members through video or text messaging Before further development of the CuePBox, a pilot study using a paper-based mockup design of the system was run. The purpose of the current paper is to present initial findings from the pilot user-testing of the CuePBox with elderly participants. Method In order to obtain user feedback about the design, in- depth interviews with elderly participants suffering from chronic conditions were conducted to better understand individual daily medication regimentation and the challenges faced in adherence. The study obtained IRB approval from the host institution’s IRB Board (Ref: IRB-2014-04-046). Participants Participants for this study were recruited from a government funded elder-care focused community centre in a Singaporean neighbourhood. These participants were from the lower to mid income group with varying levels of regimental medication adherence. We recruited 3 female and 3 male participants aged between 61 to 78 years old through collaborative aid with the centre. As not all participants were able to converse in English, the interviews were conducted in the language that participants were most