Is it Time to Recognize the Critical Importance of Patient Behavior Data, and to Reward Patients to Share that Data?

Thanks to advances in anticancer medications, today patients have alternatives to the traditional fusion-based treatment programs. These new therapies can be administered in the privacy and comfort of their home and perhaps continuing even to work throughout their treatment. The potential benefit of these new treatments has also greatly increased the investment by pharmacy research and development corporations and accelerated approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for even newer treatments with faster market availability. Anticancer medications now account for the lion’s share of total global drug spending with oral medications accounting for 35 percent of the oncology pipeline.

However, there are also significant downsides to these new drugs: self-administration of powerful toxic therapies in an unsupervised home setting can lead to sub-optimal drug adherence and poor management of side effects, potential adverse reactions and unintended drug interactions, and costs that put these new therapies outside the reach of many patients.

Because of the many complexities associated with engaging patients to help improve their medication adherence behavior (forgetfulness, belief the medication is no longer needed, etc.) or to engage them to better navigate the escalating cost, and potential financial “toxicity” of certain medicines (like oral oncolytic which can add tens of thousands of dollars per month in additional cost) – individual patient medication adherence rates have dipped as low as 20% in some cases.

Question: So how do we help patients overcome the impediments to proper medication adherence behavior and better navigate the cost for these new treatments? 

Answer: By understanding the patient’s reasons for meeting or not meeting prescription requirements, including their ability to pay for the drugs.

The exact added dollar cost to patient, provider and payer for improper medication adherence, particularly for patients with chronic ailments is hard to determine but proven to be significant. Research has shown that 10% to 15% of hospital re-admissions could be avoided if patients properly took their meds after release and the cost to treat a non-compliant diabetes patient is many times greater than a compliant patient. Not only is the dollar cost higher, but the “quality of life” standard for the patient and the patient’s family can suffer markedly.

Question: How can a patient’s behavior toward medication adherence be tracked, recorded and administered to improve their level of adherence?

Answer: Ask them!

The complete answer is a bit more complex but if we treat behavior toward medication adherence as “data” and motivate patients to participate in a program that electronically tracks, records and analyzes the “why” of their behavior, those answers will be available. And for the care provider or other stakeholder, the potential to reduce a patients cost of care by even 10% (let alone 50%) and to improve the quality of life for the patient and their family maybe it’s time that patient is financially and/or administratively compensated to provide their behavior data for day-to-day care improvement and longer term healthcare research?

NotifiUs Authors; Maya Leiva, PharmD and Terry Wolters. NotifiUs, LLC (www.notifius.com)