Duke think-tank evaluates the state of medication adherence

Recommendations aim to help ensure that Americans get the most benefit from advances in pharmacology.

Duke_research_shellpack
Duke_research_shellpack

An article published in the September 2011 issue of the American Heart Journal provides the outcome of a recent think tank meeting at the Duke Clinical Research Institute that reviewed the magnitude, prevalence, impact, and cost of medication nonadherence. DCRI is known for conducting groundbreaking multinational clinical trials, managing major national patient registries, and performing landmark outcomes research

Packaging supplier MeadWestvaco Corp. and adherence experts including representatives from consumer groups, community health providers, academia, government officials, and industry participated in a two-day meeting to evaluate the current status of the problem and provide recommendations for policy change to improve medication adherence and its impact on public health and medical costs.

Poor medication adherence is a growing national concern. Research shows that half of all patients in the U.S. do not take their medicines as prescribed, despite evidence that medical therapy prevents death and improves quality of life. Approximately 125,000 deaths per year in the U.S. are due to medication nonadherence, with total cost estimates ranging from $100 to $300 billion annually. A recent World Health Organization report states that, because the magnitude of medication nonadherence is so alarming, more health benefits worldwide would result from improving adherence to existing treatments, than from developing new medical treatments.

The goal of the meeting was to raise national awareness of the adverse consequences of nonadherence, to propose practical strategies for disseminating evidence-based approaches in real-world clinical settings, and to delineate a broad role for electronic information technology.

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