Medication adherence has long been known to be a challenge. Many factors, including behavioral and skill issues, influence it.
Clinical pharmacists who work as an extension of a primary care provider team are well-positioned to identify and address skill barriers that can inhibit adherence. They can empower patients to take medications more successfully by teaching and reinforcing medication skills.
Streamlined Processes
For patients with long-term medication regimens, streamlined processes are essential. This saves physicians time while improving patient satisfaction and reducing the need for follow-up visits.
Streamlined processes can also help prevent the need for physician burnout. The AMA STEPS Forward open-access modules provide innovative strategies to help physicians and their staff thrive in the healthcare environment while mitigating burnout.
Aside from preventing burnout, these solutions can increase the efficiency of practice operations and enable healthcare professionals to spend more time on patient care. This helps improve the quality of care and creates a solid foundation for accreditation reporting.
Additionally, implementing a specialized next-generation software solution such as MTM Solutions can help identify behaviors interfering with prescription adherence. This will give all members of the care team context as to what may be causing problems with prescriptions or patient compliance.
Medication non-adherence is a serious public health issue costing the NHS more than £500m annually. This is why healthcare organizations are investing in streamlined solutions that can help prevent readmissions, improve patient adherence and reduce the cost of medication management.
A patented medication adherence workflow solution used by thousands of health plan care managers and physician office staff today, helps healthcare organizations combat this problem. It uses analytics to target the members most at risk for medication non-adherence and distributes this targeting list to intervention teams across the organization. It also delivers real-time monitoring of each member’s refill behavior, continuously optimized call priority lists and a user experience with the proper context to enable highly effective adherence outreach.
Medication Alerts
Medication alerts are designed to help providers provide clinical decision support (CDS). They may be simple or complex reminder systems and can be implemented in various ways to help improve patient safety.
Medication alerts can be triggered when physicians or caregivers input follow-up orders, allowing them to review and address gaps in the medication regimen quickly. They can also be used for drug-drug interactions and duplicate therapy.
The most effective alert depends on several factors, including the type of error being investigated. For example, a dose or drug-drug interaction will require a different response than a drug allergy.
Typically, an alert will explain the error and the appropriate action. In addition, it will give a deadline for correcting the mistake.
These alerts are designed to encourage compliance and can be tailored for specific users based on their particular needs. They can be pushed, emailed, or texted.
We found that medication adherence improved significantly with social support and automated alerts. However, being allowed to invite a medication assistant partner (MAP) did not increase adherence in the partner + alert arm.
These results demonstrate that automated alerts and social support can improve adherence without needing a large staff. They can be scalable and cost-effective.
Easy Access to Information
A patient’s experience of medication adherence depends on their access to information. The more patients learn about their condition, the better they understand their medications and treatment options.
Patient-centric technology that allows patients to quickly and securely access their medical records is an effective means of improving medication adherence. A healthcare interoperability infrastructure can provide easy access to information across multiple care settings, minimizing administrative costs and time-consuming processes.
Whether a patient’s record is on paper or electronic, interoperable health information exchange can be integral to care coordination.
Medication therapy management (MTM) solutions that enable patients to communicate with a medical staff member over the phone, via a web portal or through secure messaging are all convenient channels that encourage medication adherence and support behavioral change. Telehealth counseling, text messaging, prescription mail order programs, reminder alerts and easy access to medical staff can help keep patients on schedule with their medication regimens and reduce readmissions.
When patients receive a comprehensive medication review, they’ll receive a personalized personal medication list (PML) and a therapeutic action plan. Some MTM services can also integrate the PML and action plan into specialized apps for patients to keep track of their health data or symptoms.
Patient Education
Patient education is an essential aspect of medication therapy management. It helps patients understand their condition, medication instructions and how to take them safely at home.
It also increases patient engagement and self-management, reducing the likelihood of hospitalizations and achieving higher patient satisfaction. Additionally, it has been proven to improve outcomes, including lower mortality rates and higher quality of life in patients with chronic conditions.
However, it is crucial to understand that only some patients respond to the same education method. Depending on their age, health literacy, language preference and other factors, a patient education plan can need to be customized for each individual.
For example, a patient with a history of drug abuse may need different information than a patient who just started taking medication for the first time. It is essential to adapt education methods accordingly so that the learning process is efficient.
In addition, caregivers must ensure patients have access to educational materials that are easy to read and understand. They should also ensure that the materials are provided at a time and place when the patient can receive them without stress or pressure.
One of the most effective ways to achieve patient education is to show empathy for the patient’s situation. This can help ensure the learning process is a positive experience and reduce patient stress. It can also increase the effectiveness of the overall education plan.