Aiding adherence: five approaches to following prescriptions

(Nature Medicine) — Poor adherence to medications costs the US as much as $290 billion a year in increased healthcare costs, according to the not-for-profit New England Healthcare Institute. That cost arises from roughly half of all patients failing to take medications as prescribed (N. Engl. J. Med. doi:10.1056/nejmp1002305, 2010). Beyond cost and failure to properly treat a medical condition, it’s been known for some time that the failure to follow prescribed medical regimens can also trigger resistance among a range of microbes.

The lack of patient adherence arises from cost, inconvenience, forgetfulness and other factors. So experts have called for innovation in this area. As Lars Osterberg, chief of general internal medicine at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System in California, says, “we must coordinate a number of tools to improve the adherence for individuals.” Here are a handful of approaches to help make that happen. read more >>