Medication Adherence for Technicians

This CE activity was originally published in The Rx Consultant.  If you received credit for it previously, you cannot receive credit for it again.

This issue will bring you up to date on the impact of nonadherence on chronic conditions and strategies for increasing compliance.

Of the 3.8 billion prescriptions dispensed in the US each year, half are not taken as prescribed. Medication nonadherence is a global healthcare problem that is increasingly recognized as a leading cause of rising health care costs and poor health outcomes (eg, disease progression). One to two-thirds of medication related hospital admissions in the US result from nonadherence. In addition, as many as 25% of nursing home admissions may be due to medication nonadherence. Avoidable healthcare costs attributed to nonadherence range from $100 billion to $300 billion each year.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has acknowledged that “increasing the effectiveness of adherence interventions may have a far greater impact on the health of the population than any improvement in specific medication treatment.” In response to the problem, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), the National Council on Patient Information and Education, and the WHO have issued a call for strategies to improve medication adherence. Furthermore, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) continues to acknowledge the importance of adherence consultation with patients. Adherence rates for diabetes, hypertension, and cholesterol (statin) medications are triple weighted measures for the 5-star rating system CMS uses to grade the quality of prescription drug plans. This issue explores the problem of nonadherence, includin its economic and clinical impact on chronic conditions, provides the tools you need to identify and measure nonadherence, and outlines strategies you can use to improve medication adherence...