Improving Medication

Adherence.

 

 

By Sergio Malorni / PDD Group

November 15, 2015

 

Sergio Malorni reviews potential design and service solutions, strategies, processes and approaches such as Human-Centred Design that pharma companies can use to control the business risk associated with medication adherence.

 

There is no shortage of statistics and studies related to the issue of patients not adhering to their medication regime – from high drop-out rates for specific prescription regimes, increased suffering and mortality risk, to the huge financial burden on the healthcare system and payers. The latter fact is hard to ignore; for the US alone according to a 2012 study, direct costs for medication non-adherence is estimated to be as much as $300 billion dollars annually.

Fortunately, ample awareness of this issue has fuelled entrepreneurs, companies and healthcare providers to develop new ways to improve adherence such as low to hitech organised pill boxes, some integrating wireless technology such as Glowcap (Fig.1) and the many mobile device apps to help remind and aid patients to stick to a regime.

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