CareHome Health Solutions founder and CEO AJ Trelease developed his Keurig-like smart device that dispenses medication and water on a prescribed schedule after seeing his grandmother struggle with her prescriptions.

“She had 20 medications she was taking throughout the day, and she was in the hospital three times from overconsumption of her prescription,” Trelease said. “That stemmed from her sorting her own pills in those pill strip containers you can find at Walgreens or CVS.”

For older adults, sorting and taking prescribed medications forces them to rely on their own aging and often deteriorating eyesight and memory, Trelease said. There are 125,000 deaths associated with medication errors each year, along with 40 million missed doses annually, he added.

Trelease said he believes medication errors and missed doses will only grow as people live longer and prescriptions become more easily accessible.

CareHome Health Solutions started as a passion project for Trelease. He won his first pitch competition with the product in grad school and continued developing it on the side while working full-time in sports management and sales.

Last year, Trelease said, he left the sports industry to focus on CareHome Health Solutions.

So far, the product, which Trelease named the Graciela after his grandmother, has gone through three iterations. The first version was a 3D printed shell outfitted with off-the-shelf electronics. It barely worked, Trelease said, but offered the proof of concept he needed.

The next prototype incorporated a water dispenser and a feature that allowed caregivers to schedule when the pills were dispensed.

“Now, through pitch competitions and awards and funding,” Trelease said, “we’ve developed our third working prototype, which now is not only demo-ready, but we’re able to put it into somebody’s home.”

Interviews with potential users during each round of prototyping have shaped the product’s features, Trelease said. Elements of the current model, including the water dispenser and the device’s cellular connectivity, were added based on feedback from consumer interviews.

The device also doesn’t have any buttons, a feature that aims to make it easier to use for those with tremors, arthritis or memory loss issues, Trelease said.

“We’re not the first pill dispensers on the market,” he said, “but we’re the first ones that are geared toward the senior population specifically.”

CareHome Health Solutions recently opened a pre-seed round to raise $1 million to fund what Trelease hopes will be the fourth and final prototype. Trelease expects the product could be brought to market six to eight months after closing the funding round, he said.

So far, Trelease has relied on self-funding, along with grants and pitch competition winnings, but he’s looking for an investor.

“That’s pretty much my full-time job now is touching base with early-stage venture capitalist firms or angel investor groups,” he said, “really putting ourselves out there as much as possible to see who’s interested, who’s the right fit.”

Caregivers are currently the target market for the project, Trelease said. Caregivers can remotely schedule when medication is dispensed and receive notifications on an app when something goes wrong, such as if the machine stops working or the pills aren’t picked up, he added.

The company is focused on building a real-time dashboard for families and caregivers to monitor medication dispensation via the machine and has an alpha version it’s currently testing with families, Trelease said.

Once the company establishes itself with the caregiver and consumer market, Trelease said he plans to explore an expansion into other sectors, including home health, insurance, pharmacies and clinical trials.

He said, “The opportunities for expansion are seemingly never-ending.”