A complete walkthrough for students collecting medication adherence data for the first time. If you have used REDCap or paper CRFs before, ATLAS will feel familiar within your first session.
STU-UNIC-ABCD-2026, sent to you by your supervisor or purchased at keys.adherence.cc; (2) your institution's ethics or IRB approval for medication adherence data collection; (3) a laptop or desktop computer running Chrome or Edge for the best experience.
ATLAS (Adherence Tracking and Longitudinal Assessment System) is a validated digital platform for collecting, storing, and analysing medication adherence data using the MMAS-8 scale and PEACS instrument. Think of it as a secure, cloud-based replacement for a paper CRF — except it scores automatically, maps submissions to a global dataset in real time, and produces IRB-ready export files.
When a patient completes the MMAS-8 through ATLAS, their anonymised response is stored in your private cohort — visible only to you and anyone else with your workspace key. No personally identifiable information is collected. The data is stored in Google Firebase (US data centres) with AES-256 encryption at rest.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Workspace key | Your unique access code (STU-XXXX-XXXX-2026). This is your cohort identifier. Keep it safe — anyone who has it can add data to your cohort. |
| MMAS-8 | The Morisky Medication Adherence Scale, 8 items. The world's most validated self-report adherence instrument. Your workspace key includes a Letter of Permission to use it. |
| MMAS-8R | The revised version licensed through ATLAS. Identical to MMAS-8 in wording and scoring. |
| PEACS | Predictive Emergence Assessment for Clinical Services. A three-dimension instrument (BASE, MVMT, STRATA) that predicts sustained adherence behaviour. Available on the Student tier as a single-point snapshot. |
| INA / UNA | Intentional Non-Adherence / Unintentional Non-Adherence. ATLAS classifies every patient automatically based on their response pattern. |
| Global pool | Anonymised aggregate data from all ATLAS users worldwide. Your cohort data is isolated — it does not appear in the global pool unless you specifically enable that. |
You will see the ATLAS entry screen — a globe on the left, a panel of options on the right. Do not be alarmed by the globe. It shows where other researchers are collecting data in real time. It has nothing to do with your data yet.
The four cards on the entry screen represent different pathways. Click the card labelled Tracks A+B · Researcher (the one that says "PI · Pharmacist · Clinician · Student"). A workspace key entry box will appear at the bottom of the screen.
Type your key exactly as it was sent to you — for example STU-UNIC-ABCD-2026. The system validates it against a secure database. If validation succeeds, you will move directly to your dashboard. The process takes 2–3 seconds.
The green chip in the top-left corner of the dashboard shows your workspace identifier. This is your private cohort. Every assessment you collect will be stored here and only here.
Your dashboard has two main tracks side by side:
The top bar shows global statistics — these are from all ATLAS users worldwide and are not your data. Your data appears in the panels below.
There are two ways to collect an MMAS-8 assessment:
Hand your laptop or tablet to the patient. Click New Assessment → (the blue button below the MMAS-8 panel). The screen switches to a clean patient-facing interface. The patient reads each question and selects their answer. When done, they click Submit. The device returns to your dashboard automatically.
Read each question aloud and select the patient's answer on their behalf. Use this when the patient has low literacy, vision impairment, or is not comfortable with technology. The scoring and data storage are identical.
ZOE is an AI voice agent that guides the patient through the MMAS-8 verbally using the device's microphone. The patient hears each question spoken aloud and responds naturally. ZOE interprets the response and records the answer. Note: ZOE requires Chrome or Edge and microphone permission. The Student tier includes ZOE but does not include SOAP note generation.
Before every MMAS-8 assessment, patients see a digital consent screen. This screen explains:
The patient must actively tick the consent checkbox before proceeding. This consent record is timestamped and stored with their submission — which satisfies most ethics committee requirements for anonymous survey data.
The MMAS-8 consists of eight questions. Questions 1–7 are Yes/No. Question 8 asks about frequency of difficulty remembering medication.
Before the questions, patients are asked for their country, city (optional), medication name, condition, and basic demographics. All of this is optional — patients can skip any field they are not comfortable with. The MMAS-8 questions themselves are mandatory; a partial MMAS-8 cannot be submitted.
After submission, the patient sees a result screen showing:
This screen is for the patient. Click ← Exit or wait for it to return to the dashboard automatically after 30 seconds. The patient's data has already been saved to your cohort at the moment they submitted.
Return to your dashboard to see the submission counted. The MMAS-8 panel updates in real time. As you collect more data you will see:
Scroll down past the main instrument cards to find the Active Patients · Your Cohort table. This shows every individual patient record with their Patient ID (if you assigned one), MMAS-8 score, pattern classification, and date. You can search by Patient ID and sort by most recent or by score.
To export your cohort data for analysis in SPSS, R, Excel, or any other tool:
This downloads a comma-separated values file containing all your cohort records. The Student tier allows 50 exports per month. Each row is one patient assessment.
| Column | Contents |
|---|---|
patient_number | Your assigned Patient ID (if entered) |
score | MMAS-8 total score (0–8) |
q1–q8 | Individual question scores |
pattern | INA / UNA / Mixed / High |
country, city | Patient-reported location |
condition | Patient-reported medical condition |
drug_name | Patient-reported medication |
timestamp | Unix millisecond timestamp of submission |
institution_code | Your workspace key prefix (for identifying your cohort) |
Click " Cite Instruments → then find the Session Certificate button in the MMAS-8 panel. This generates a printable document showing your workspace, total submissions, countries covered, mean score, and a unique session ID. Print this to PDF and keep it with your ethics committee documentation.
Use this language when describing ATLAS in your application:
Your workspace key came with a Letter of Permission for the MMAS-8R attached to your welcome email as an HTML file. Open it in any browser and print to PDF. This letter is what you submit to your ethics committee and include in any publication. It is signed by Philip Morisky, Founder of Adherence Inc. and steward of the MMAS-8R intellectual property.
The letter includes a unique certificate number (format: MMAS8R-XXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXX) that can be verified by any journal editor or ethics officer at keys.adherence.cc/verify.
Contact info@adherence.cc with your workspace key prefix and the approximate timestamp of the test submission. We can remove individual records from your cohort. Alternatively, use the Patient ID field to mark test records (e.g. TEST-001) and exclude them during analysis using your export filter.
Yes. Multiple people can be logged into the same workspace simultaneously. All data goes to the same cohort. This is useful when multiple research coordinators are collecting data at the same site. Coordinate Patient ID assignment to avoid duplicates.
ATLAS requires all 8 MMAS-8 questions to be answered before submission. If a patient exits mid-way, no data is saved. Their partial responses are not recorded anywhere.
Yes — ATLAS has a built-in offline queue. If a patient submits an assessment while your device has no internet connection, the submission is saved locally in the browser's IndexedDB storage. When connectivity is restored, a yellow ⚡ Queued Submissions — Tap to Sync badge appears at the bottom-left of the screen. Tap it to push all queued submissions to your cohort at once.
This means you can collect in a clinic with no WiFi and sync at the end of the session over any connection. The patient sees the normal result screen immediately — the data just travels to Firebase later. If you close the browser before syncing, the queue persists until the next time you open ATLAS on the same device and browser.
Share your workspace key with your supervisor. They enter it on the ATLAS entry screen and see your full cohort dashboard. Remind them not to share it further — anyone with the key can submit data to your cohort.
Your cohort data is filtered by your workspace key. The global pool on the spectator map and explorer mode does not show your individual cohort — it shows anonymised aggregates only. Your CSV export contains your records only.
Use the language selector dropdown at the top of the MMAS-8 screen to change the language before handing the device to a patient. If a language you need is missing, contact info@adherence.cc — we have translations available in 60+ languages and can activate additional ones for your workspace.