BehindTheMedspeak: Would you take a pill that texts you?

Too late, it's on.

According to Andrew Jack's front page story in yesterday's Financial Times, "Patients who fail to pop pills on time could soon benefit from having a chip on their shoulder, under a ground-breaking electronic system being developed by Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceuticals group."

More: "... tests using the system — which broadcasts from the 'chip in the pill' [top] to a receiver on the shoulder [below]

— ... has boosted 'compliance' with prescriptions from 30% to 80% after six months."

Note to Novartis: embed that receiver in the nucleus accumbens and you'll hit 100% before you can say "Where's that lever, I need to press it again?"

But I digress.

Wrote Don Clark in an August 4, 2009 Wall Street Journal story on this new technology, "Dozens of large and small companies are turning to wireless technology to achieve what the Obama administration is seeking through legislation: a health-care system that keeps people healthier for less."

Andrew Thompson, CEO of Proteus Technologies, which makes the texting pill, told Clark that "... its circuitry is safely digestible and, in high-volume production, will add less than a penny to the cost of a pill."

This'll give a whole new meaning to "it must've been all those chips I ate...."