Compliance management programmes

Economic impact

Compliance programmes are aimed at patients – they help motivate patients to take their medications regularly as prescribed, and to continue with the prescribed course of therapy.

Patient non-compliance is a well-documented issue. There is a growing consensus amongst the medical profession that non-compliance is becoming more prevalent. The actual cost to the pharmaceutical industry is high: it is estimated that the pharmaceutical industry annually loses revenues of:

• Approximately £15-18 billion due to unfulfilled prescriptions
• Approximately £9-12 billion due to prescribed drugs not being taken

Some studies (for example, BCG Focus, 2003) indicate that the pharmaceutical industry annually loses revenues totalling £60 billion when other costs are considered, such as:

• Re-admission to hospitals and nursing homes
• Lost productivity
• New prescriptions

Compliance issues – determining non-compliance factors

Approximately half of patients who take prescribed drugs do not comply with their treatment. Reasons for patients non-compliance include:

• Therapeutic complexity
  When patients take frequent doses, they may forget one or more doses; complexity also increases with age, and with co-morbidities
• Side effects
  Patients may stop taking drugs if they feel the side effects are worse than the actual symptoms
• Ease of compliance
  Dosing requirements (for example, frequency, or the need to take medication with food) may impact on patients' lifestyles
• Tolerability of therapy
  Patients may find the medication unpalatable, or find its delivery irritating (for example, where frequent injections are needed)
• Attitude to therapy
  Patients may not be happy taking drugs for long periods, or admitting they are ill

Recommended strategy – an industry consensus

Pharmaceutical companies need to work with the medical community to develop educational pogrammes and point-of-care tools that help identify patients who would benefit from eCompliance programmes. For these online disease management and compliance tools to succeed, doctors must endorse them.

As technology has advanced over the last five to ten years, the eCompliance market has evolved, enabling interactive and cost-effective communication between patients and healthcare professionals. Pharmaceutical companies will gain their greatest return on investment when they invest in eCompliance tools that offer doctor-facing and direct-to-patient components.

For further information on our compliance services contact us at: compliance@outcometechnologies.com

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