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Healthcare reform could boost use of compliance-prompting packaging

The Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council’s Symposium honors Pfizer, Anderson Packaging with its 2009 Package of the Year Award.

Pfizer
Pfizer

Broader use of compliance-prompting packaging (CPP) in the U.S. has been elusive, often stalled by cost concerns. Yet healthcare reform may potentially prove to the “tipping point” in negating cost as the key driver. How? As healthcare reform begins to take shape, “physicians, pharmacists, and hospitals will make money by making people healthier and improving patient health outcomes,“ said Walter Berghahn, vice president of packaging technology for Amerisource Bergen Packaging Group.

Berghahn, who also serves as chairman of the board of directors of the Healthcare Compliance Packaging Council, made the remarks at the opening of HCPC’s 18th Annual National Symposium on Patient Compliance May 5 in Valley Forge, PA.

John O’Brien, executive director of the Responsible Health Institute, noted that innovative pilot programs pack the potential to increase the use of CPP if the hospital or medical home can show that such packaging produces improved health outcomes.

O’Brien, who delivered the presentation, “U.S. Regulatory Healthcare Update,” at the Symposium, said, “There’s a need to realize that pill boxes and amber vials may no longer work well in compliance. It will be exciting when pharmacies see compliance-prompting packaging as addressing medical problems and improving health outcomes and overall costs.”

O’Brien said the new “model of healthcare will be different than primary care, with a focus on prevention.” He cited medical homes and patient engagement as promising developments in the healthcare community. Medical and technological advancements could create exciting new products in the future, he noted. For example, he mentioned a glucose meter that could synch with a portable electronic device that could reward a young adult for lowering their A1C number in countering diabetes.

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