Medical adherence is a crucial issue, especially among elderly patients who often have a complex medical regime that requires several pills per day, and this represents a huge challenge to the industry. Failure to take the correct medicine at the correct time believed to cost in the region of $300bn a year, and approximately 120,000 deaths.
It’s perhaps not surprising that a number of technological solutions have emerged to help ensure that the right medicines are taken at the right time. For instance, PillDrill provides a personalized medication schedule and a scanning system that allows patients to track and monitor dosages and give us a nudge when the next dose is due. Or you’ve got AICure, who combine machine learning with smartphone technology to both remind people to take their medicine, and also try and prove that they did so.
These kind of technologies are not only effective, but also much appreciated by users, with a recent study showing that people thought such technologies would be valuable and help them with the various practical aspects of taking their medicine. For instance, people responded that their memory wasn’t as good as it used to be, so reminders were invaluable, both in terms of reminding you to take the tablet, and reminding you that you have already taken it for that specific day.
Valued based design
Of course, you don’t have to just use high-tech solutions to improve matters, with a number of insurance based health systems using pricing mechanisms known as ‘value-based insurance design (VBID)’ to encourage adherence. This involves offering financial incentives to people to take their medicine, and a recent study from the University of Michigan found that whilst providing a financial incentive to take medicines might seem counter-intuitive, it did actually reduce costs by reducing the amount people spent on other aspects of healthcare.
“Enhanced access to high-value drugs that did not lead to an increase in total spending is a win/win for both insurers and patients,” the authors say. “If total costs are equal, using more medicines that prevent costly hospitalizations is clearly preferable to having people being admitted to a hospital.”
The researchers examined 21 previous studies on the impact of this form of drug plans when compared against more traditional plans across a range of conditions, including diabetes, high cholesterol and asthma.
Across all of the conditions, the use of VBID plans resulted in better drug adherence, and whilst many revealed an increase in prescription drug spending, this correlated with a reduction in overall healthcare spending.
Whether technical or non-technical therefore, there do appear to be some quite clear ways of improving medicine adherence, which given the tremendous human and financial costs involved, is something that really should make healthcare providers sit up and take notice.
