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The National Marketing Cooperative announced the launch of MedHere Today™, a pharmacy practices system that addresses the chronic problem of patient non-adhrerence: patients who don’t take their medicine.

Although just launched as a commercial product, the the MedHere Today™ system has been in testing and development since mid-2006. What began as a way to provide better service to pharmacy patients soon developed into the most effective medication adherence system in America.

Medication Non-Adherence Is A Huge Problem

It is a recognized fact that people just don’t take their medications when and how they should. Studies of non-adherence reveal shocking numbers:

    22% of pharmacy patients don’t take all of their medications
    12% don’t take their medications at all
    29% don’t finish all the doses
    somewhere from 33%-69% of all hospital admissions are attributable to patient non-adherence
The resulting challenge for the pharmacy is how to deliver AAA+ patient care and recoup the 30% lost sales and profits from non-adherence.

Non-adherence Means Everyone Loses

The study by Pfizer reveals that while it is clear that patients who don’t take their medications are placing themselves at risk, pharmacists can miss the fact that they are losing 25% to 30% of their refill business. According to this study, the average pharmacy is needlessly losing thousands of dollars of sales and profits. What’s worse is that every pharmacy is losing business from their own customers…not the competition. On a national scale, medication non-adherence costs the American healthcare system an estimated $ 200 billion dollars. People who don’t take their medications result in an estimated 33% of all hospital admissions.

Multiple Factors Are At Work In The Non-Adherence Problem

With the non-adherence problem coming to the forefront of attention in the pharmacy industry, pharmacists are seeking solutions. Some people think “synchronizing prescriptions” is the answer to non-adherence, but it’s not. Synchronizing only addresses the convenience factor by making the patient’s prescriptions available on the same day each month. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that when the patient leaves the pharmacy that they will actually take their medications. To the contrary, research proves otherwise. Medication non-adherence is a complicated problem with a number of causes that “synchronizing” does not address:

    Cost    (one of the most important barriers to adherence)        
    Patients doubt efficacy of their medications    
    Medications are thought to not be “worth” the cost and hassle    
    Confusion (especially for patients on multiple medications)        
    Patient has medications but doesn’t take them
    Poor doctor-patient communication
    Simple neglect on the part of the patient

The Solution: MedHere Today™ System Increases Patient Adherence From 78% To 92%

MedHere Today™ is a highly structured pharmacy practices model that systematically guides the pharmacy staff through the process of achieving much better patient medication adherence. An in-depth study by Pfizer* revealed that the MedHere Today™ system…

    Increased patient adherence from 78% to 92%
    Increased overall gross margins by $ 1.87 per prescription
    For patients enrolled in the MedHere Today™ system, the number of prescriptions dispensed increased by 36% the first year alone
    The goals of the MedHere Today™ medication adherence system are to deliver better patient care performance and pharmacy profit performance at the same time.

The MedHere Today™ system was developed with three priorities in mind:

    Availability: Make sure the patient has all of the medications they need when they need them
    Communication: Make sure the patient understands the role of their medications in their therapy.
    Cost containment: purposeful interaction with the patient to find alternative solutions that will lower the cost of medications.

Tags: Healthcare, Medication, Online, Pharmacy