Tragedy can inspire those living in its shadow to pave the way for progress and compassion.
Born into a family of Holocaust refugees and a witness to the 9/11 terrorist attacks herself, Deborah Adler found a way to make better bottles.
Adler, an artist and graphic designer with an entrepreneurial spirit, created the ClearRx prescription system while a graduate student at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
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“She identified many problems that required modification of the traditional pill bottle,” the MIT-Lemelson Program for Innovation Leaders said in a tribute to Adler.
First sold by Target in 2005, Adler’s vision to improve prescription packaging was based on the potential tragedy found in every medicine cabinet: someone getting the wrong drug or the wrong dose at the wrong time. decreased the likelihood of taking
Deborah Adler in her New York office in 2005. Her new prescription container design includes a color-coded ring on the neck of the bottle to help identify members of her family, and a flat-sided pill bottle that stands on top of the cap and label for easy reading. It has become. (Joe Tabacca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“More than 7 million patients in the United States are affected by medication errors each year,” the Journal of Community Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives wrote in 2016.
Industry estimates suggest that up to 9,000 Americans die each year from taking the wrong medication.
“More than 7 million patients in the United States are affected by medication errors each year.”
Adler’s inspiration to combat the specter of human misfortune came as an instinctive creative response to a confluence of incredible and near-tragic tragedies.
Her Jewish grandmother survived in occupied Poland during World War II and was one of the lucky few to escape the fate of concentration camps.
However, Helen Adler may have died decades later in the comfort of her American home simply because of a poorly designed prescription bottle.
A sample of prescription drug containers redesigned by Deborah Adler in 2005. This design includes color-coded rings on the neck of the bottle for each family, a flat-sided pill bottle that stands on top of the cap, and an easy-to-read label. Patient information card that can be pulled out from the back of the label. (Joe Tabacca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
After witnessing an unspeakable tragedy in his own life, Adler became determined to help his grandmother and millions of others like her.
refugees from the holocaust
Deborah Adler was born on September 14, 1975 in Rockland County, New York.
Raised in Chappaqua, Westchester County, New York, she attended Horace Greeley High School and the University of Vermont before applying to the graduate program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
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Her father, Dr. Melvin Adler, is an orthopedic surgeon who recently retired after many years working at Montefiore Mount Vernon Hospital and teaching at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx.
Helen Adler (left) survived the Holocaust and arrived in the United States after World War II. Deborah Adler is the renowned designer of the ClearRx prescription system. She was triggered by a mistake with her grandmother’s medication. (Courtesy of Deborah Adler/Adler Design)
Her mother, Karen Adler, was a nurse and passed away in 2021 from pancreatic cancer.
Her maternal grandfather and uncle were also doctors.
“I always grew up looking up to them,” she said of her family’s caregivers.
“I think she gave birth to my father behind the bakery.”
She also drew inspiration from her family’s amazing World War II survival story.
Her paternal grandparents, Herman and Helen Adler, were Jewish refugees from Poland who were still teenagers when they spent the last two years of the war surviving in the woods.
“My grandparents went through a lot,” Adler said. “They survived by hiding in the forest. They lived in the forest for two whole years.”
In 1943, during World War II, a group of Jewish civilians were held at gunpoint by the German SS during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Poland. Deborah Adler’s Jewish grandparents lived as refugees in the forests of Poland for two years, fleeing persecution by National Socialist Germany. Workers’ Party. (12/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images)
She suspects that it was in this forest that her father was conceived while her Jewish grandparents were escaping German National Socialist captivity.
“My grandmother was pregnant when she returned to town. [Tarnogrod] And then we realized it was being destroyed,” Adler said.
“I think she gave birth to my father behind the bakery.”
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The Adler family arrived in the United States in 1947 and began building a productive life in their new homeland.
The Adler family’s Holocaust experience caught the attention of future professor Steven Heller.
“When I met her, it was just a gut feeling,” said Heller, co-chair of the School of Visual Arts’ Master of Fine Arts Design program.
Deborah Adler’s patent for an improved prescription bottle included a new labeling system. Among other innovations, her system focused on critical medical and patient information over pharmacy branding. (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office/Public Domain)
“I met a prospective student, and what stood out in her portfolio were two posters of Holocaust works and plays about the Holocaust. I thought, ‘Wow!’ . That just rang a bell for me.”
The professor invited Adler to the program, encouraged by her ability to explain the Holocaust, to commemorate the tragedy embedded in the family’s memory bank.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
In the summer of 2001, Adler began his second and final year of the program at the School of Visual Arts.
She set her sights on her final thesis, designing and selling consumer products for people with curly hair, when two events changed her trajectory.
Deborah Adler was a graduate student in New York City on September 11, 2001. She witnessed the World Trade Center attack from the rooftop. Her horrifying experience inspired her to focus on her thesis, which would be her lasting contribution to the welfare of humanity. (Getty Images)
Helen Adler, a Holocaust survivor and grandmother, became ill after accidentally taking prescription medication intended for her husband, Herman.
“The bottles were difficult to read and both were named ‘H. Adler.’ That was part of the problem,” the designer said. “Then a light bulb went off.”
The call to action came a little later, on September 11, 2001.
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“I was very scared and scared and kind of in shock,” said Adler, who lived about two miles from the World Trade Center in Greenwich Village.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing on TV. So I had to run up to the roof and see it for myself.”
She said the paper on curly hair “suddenly became less important.”
A museum employee takes a photo of an oversized presentation of the iconic “I Love NY” logo, designed by Milton Glaser, installed inside the west end of the lobby of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in August 2020. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images)
“Her grandmother could have taken the wrong medication and committed suicide,” Heller said.
“She took a whole new turn.” [thesis] He proposed in just a weekend. It was a very surprising change. ”
“I was so scared and horrified and in shock.”
There was little chance that a graduate student’s project would make it to market.
Then, the fate of Adler’s idea brightened dramatically when she landed a job with Milton Glaser.
He is one of the world’s most famous graphic designers, best known for creating the iconic “I Love New York” logo.
Early work by Deborah Adler on what would become the ClearRx prescription system. She was inspired to begin this work shortly after witnessing her 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City. (Courtesy of Deborah Adler/Adler Design)
He supported Adler’s Better Prescription Bottle Plan and introduced it to Target executives. She then worked with designer Klaus Rosberg to design the perfect bottle that would fit Adler’s formulation protocols.
When Target introduced a prescription pack called ClearRx on May 1, 2005, the designer was just 29 years old and four years removed from witnessing the collapse of the Twin Towers from a Manhattan rooftop.
“What is personal is universal”
Deborah Adler currently runs Adler Design in New Jersey and teaches at the School of Visual Arts.
CVS acquired Target Pharmacy in 2015 and adopted the ClearRx system. All CVS Pharmacies today.
She has been admired by both industry and the artistic world.
Deborah Adler deconstructed existing prescribing protocols to make labeling more intuitive. Among other issues, the labels emphasized store branding over important patient information. (Courtesy of Deborah Adler/Adler Design)
“The result of her hard work is an intuitive pill bottle and information system that includes redesigned bottles, easy-to-read labels, removable information cards, color-coded rings, and redesigned warning icons. ” the MIT-Lemelson Program wrote about Mr. Adler. Innovation.
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The Target ClearRx prescription system is on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Her latest pharmacy innovation, AdlerRx, organizes prescriptions across days and times of the week to create easy-to-follow schedules.
“The problem my grandmother had was that she wasn’t just on one medication. She was on a whole series of medications.”
Deborah Adler attends the TARGET Open House Party at Trinity Lot on May 14, 2005 in New York City. (Billy Farrell/Patrick McMullan, via Getty Images)
Her AdlerRx model, which she patented in 2021, is available at CVS pharmacies nationwide.
She believes there are still many lives to be saved.
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“I hope my newest system becomes the federal standard,” Adler said.
Inspired by her grandmother’s medication mistakes, Adler designed a more intuitive system for prescription bottles, shown at left. (Joe Tabacca/Bloomberg via Getty Images, provided by Deborah Adler)
Decades later, Heller, a professor at Adler’s School of Design, continues to be impressed by his award-winning students’ ability to respond to crises with creativity and compassion.
“You know, when you have an accident, an accident, a terrible tragedy, a lot of great things happen because of how people react,” he said.
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