Medical device having a reminder function

1. A medical device having a reminder function, the medical device comprising:

a reminder generator for issuing a reminder to a user to perform a predetermined action with the medical device; and

a controller for selecting the reminder from a plurality of available reminders and for controlling the reminder generator to issue the selected reminder in accordance with a reminding schedule;

wherein the controller is configured to maintain a measure of the effectiveness of each of said available reminders and to select the reminder from the plurality of available reminders based on said measures;

wherein the effectiveness of an available reminder is an extent to which the available reminder is successful in achieving user compliance in performing the predetermined action.

2. The medical device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to maintain a measure of effectiveness of each of said available reminders that is based on the average time difference between the issue of said reminder and the user performing the predetermined action.

3. The medical device as claimed in claim 2 , wherein, after issue of a reminder, the controller is configured to update the measure of effectiveness for said reminder using

updated_effectiveness

=

nr_times

⁢

_used

⁢

_before

+

1

new_time

⁢

_lapse

+

nr_times

⁢

_used

⁢

_before

previous_effectiveness

where nr_times_used_before is the total number of times that the reminder has been issued, new_time_lapse is the time between the issue of the reminder and the user performing the predetermined action and previous_effectiveness is the value of the measure of the effectiveness for said reminder before said reminder was issued.

4. The medical device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to select the reminder from the plurality of available reminders having the highest measure of effectiveness.

5. The medical device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to select the reminder from a subset of the plurality of available reminders, the reminders in the subset having the highest measures of effectiveness.

6. The medical device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to operate in a training mode in which the controller selects a reminder from the plurality of available reminders at random.

7. The medical device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is further configured to operate in a training mode in which the controller selects a reminder from the plurality of available reminders that has been used the least times.

8. The medical device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to select the reminder from the plurality of available reminders statistically using the measures of the effectiveness and a random contribution.

9. The medical device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to select the reminder from the plurality of available reminders by using probabilistic selection in which each reminder has an associated probability of selection that is defined by a ratio between the measure of the effectiveness of said reminder and the sum of the measures of effectiveness for each of said reminders in the plurality of available reminders.

10. The medical device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the controller is configured to receive feedback from the user on one or more of the reminders in the plurality of available reminders and to update the measure of the effectiveness for each of said one or more reminders based on said feedback.

11. The medical device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein each of the reminders in the plurality of available reminders has one or more modalities selected from sounds, visual elements, vibrations and smells.

12. The medical device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the medical device is a medical monitoring device and further comprises at least one physiological characteristic sensor, wherein the reminder generator is for issuing a reminder to the user to take a measurement using the at least one physiological characteristic sensor.

13. The medical device as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the medical device is a medicament dispensing device and further comprises a medicament dispenser, wherein the reminder generator is for issuing a reminder to the user to take a medicament from the medicament dispenser.

14. A method of operating a medical device, the method comprising:

determining that a reminder should be issued to a user of the medical device to remind the user to perform a predetermined action with the medical device;

selecting a reminder from a plurality of available reminders, the selection of the reminder being based on measures of the effectiveness of each of said reminders in the plurality, wherein the effectiveness of an available reminder is an extent to which the available reminder is successful in achieving user compliance in performing the predetermined action; and

issuing the selected reminder to the user.

15. The method as claimed in claim 14 , further comprising the steps of:

determining the time elapsed from the issue of the selected reminder and the user performing the predetermined action; and

updating the measure of the effectiveness of the selected reminder using the determined elapsed time.

16. The non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer readable code embodied therein, wherein the computer readable code is configured to cause a computer or processor to perform the method of claim 14 .

17. A medical reminder device comprising:

a memory configured to store a plurality of reminders to perform a predetermined action and, for each of the reminders, an average time difference between issuing the reminder and a user performing the predetermined action; and

a controller configured to:

select one of the reminders stored in the memory based on the stored average time differences;

control a reminder generator to issue the selected reminder;

determine a time difference between issuing the selected reminder and the user performing the predetermined action; and

updating the average time difference for the selected reminder based on the determined time difference.