Three Lessons Pain Management Teaches Us About Patient Adherence
(This article was first published in the Journal of Patient Compliance; see page 12.) Pain medication is an anomaly in patient adherence. Here the concern is with taking too much and not often enough, which is the usual problem faced in getting patients to take their medication. A common reason why patients seek medical advice … Continue reading
Patients with chronic pain may face a medication double jeopardy
We as a society either take too much or too little prescription medication — and, interestingly, sometimes both too much and too little in the same patient. In a recent article, “America’s fatal addiction to prescription drugs”, the author (Dr David Kloth) describes rather poignantly this plight with prescription medications: Misuse of legal medications kills … Continue reading
How is a patient’s customer value proposition related to patient adherence?
A recent study, published in the American Journal of Cardiology, illustrates the connection between a patient’s customer value proposition and that patient’s adherence. Researchers examined Medicare data on more than 13,000 adults who had been hospitalized for a heart attack or severe chest pain caused by caused by diseased heart arteries. More than 70% received heart bypass surgery or … Continue reading
Who profits from improved patient adherence?
Aside from patients who get better health outcomes because of better adherence, who profits (either from increased revenues or lower expenses) from improved patient adherence? On the revenue side are the pharmaceuticals. The simplest and most straight-forward answer is that pharmaceuticals would profit the most. After all, more adherence means more product usage, which means … Continue reading
Trust or not trust pharmaceuticals — is there a place for branded marketing?
To paraphrase Hamlet — to trust or not trust pharmaceuticals, that is the question. A recent study shows that use of pharmaceutical branded websites are on the rise, based on web activity from January 2010 to January 2011 as measured by comScore and as illustrated below: Moreover, comScore “found that visitation to a branded website … Continue reading
Need for an adherence platform: recently launched Journal of Patient Compliance
The need for a platform where all stakeholders can communicate and exchange ideas on how to improve patient adherence and health outcomes is much needed if this important issue is going to solved. The Journal of Patient Compliance was just launched this month. JPC is a peer reviewed Journal that looks into the ideal way in … Continue reading
When should patients not follow the advice of their doctors?
Question — When should patients not follow the advice of their doctors? Answer — Most of the time. Or, at least, that’s what the recent study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine seems to have found. As Dr Timothy Quill, author of an accompanying editorial in the journal, says: It’s a pretty clear message: There’s a discrepancy … Continue reading
Are doctors the forgotten factor in improving patient adherence?
Doctors almost seem to be the forgotten player in the healthcare system — perhaps it’s because of the perception that doctors are just pawns of the pharmaceutical industry. For example, there has been a steady stream of news about doctors refusing to see pharmaceutical sales reps and cutting financial ties with pharmaceuticals. Or, perhaps it’s … Continue reading
Not all patient stories make good adherence stories
There are legions of patient stories out there — just take a look at the many chatlines, blogs, tweets and facebook posts by patients. Some complain about their treatment, some worry about their disease, some feel better, some don’t like their doctor … While these patient dialogues and interactions may help, they may also not … Continue reading
Can a Patient Adherence Program be Self-Funded?
According to the report “Ensuring Profitable Patient Adherence Programs: Using Analytics and Metrics to Improve the Bottom Line”, pharmaceutical companies spend nearly 97% of their marketing budget to capture initial market share. This means that 3% of their marketing budget is devoted to on-going efforts, like patient adherence. As the report’s author, Dr Andree Bates, … Continue reading
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