Social Networks Help The Medicine Go Down

Plerts is a new social network that wants to help your friends watch your back (we’re guessing it’s a concatenation of people-alerts?). You log into the Plerts app through their website, or on your iPhone or Facebook, add contacts, and set up events and reminders — like flying to Bangkok or taking your Plavix. Then, when you fail to log your landing or med administration, your friends will get alerted as to what you’ve failed to do, and they can get on your case about it or alert authorities. There’s also an option to call 911.
Techcrunch reports:

For example, if you decide to buy something on CraigsList and visit a seller’s home that is unknown to you, you could enable a Plerts alert. If you don’t check-in after the visit, Plerts will alert the member of your social graph with an alert that you are rogue. Another example is to ensure that someone is taking their medication. The user can check-in after taking the medication, thus alerting their loved ones and personal contacts that their family member has taken his or her proper medication.
Unlike 911, Plerts is designed to be preemptive to an emergency. One of themain issues with Plerts is privacy. Users may not want to tap into their social graph on Facebook, for example, and allow friends and contacts to know what your medical conditions are or who you are meeting. But with Plerts, nobody has to know where you are or what you’re doing (i.e. going on a blind date, going away on vacation) unless the unfortunate happens and you fail to check back in. Only at this point is your real-time location and personal information made available to your pre-selected contacts (which can be limited a to a few close friends or family).

Color us skeptical. We’re all in favor of preventing emergencies, and we’re very enthusiastic about new technologies for medication compliance, and ambient sensors to detect falls or lack of movement. But this seems like yet another app for the worried well, which will probably generate more “emergencies” than it hopes to prevent, and stress out your friends in the process (if you’re forgetful enough to take your meds, you’re probably going to forget your phone somewhere and thus ignore you’re friends’ concerned calls until EMS hunts you down…)
More at Plerts.com…