One of the first health lessons many of us ever heard was that famous rhyme our mothers used to recite frequently: An apple a day keeps the doctor away. With all due respect to mothers everywhere, while apples are a perfectly good source of nutrition and have many benefits, unfortunately we know that simply eating one every day is not enough to keep us in perfect health.

However, if you’ll indulge me for just a minute, let’s pretend that apples really could keep the doctor away. Sadly, here’s what we know would happen:

• Roughly one-third of people who are supposed to eat an apple a day wouldn’t even go to the grocery store to buy a bag[1]

• 75% wouldn’t eat an apple all seven days of the week, but they’d definitely try their best to eat an apple at least four or five times per week[2]

• More than 70% of those struggling with depression would start eating apples every day, but would no longer be eating them after six months[3]

• The grocery industry would be spending hundreds of billions of dollars per year trying to figure out why nobody wants to eat their apples[4]

Unfortunately, as we all know, we’re not talking about apples. This is the reality of the pharmaceutical world, as study after study has shown that patient adherence and compliance are two of the biggest challenges facing the industry.

You can write this off as human nature if you want. After all, people are notoriously bad at taking orders and following directions. But what if the problem isn’t that patients don’t know what they are supposed to be doing, but rather, they simply don’t understand why they should be doing it?

As a brand marketer, there’s a huge opportunity for you to go beyond the prescription pad to give patients what they want most: knowledge.

By incorporating key messages in education materials placed in the offices and exam rooms where they receive this prescription, you can go beyond simply telling the patient what they should be doing. Rather, you are showing them why they should be doing it and empower them to ask questions that truly make a difference in their health journey.

What are those questions? Here are a few to get you started (using our “apple a day” example):

• What do I need to know about this disease/condition?
• Why is an apple a day the right treatment option for me?
• How is the apple a day going to improve my disease/condition?
• Do I want a red, green, or golden apple?
• Are there any side effects to eating an apple a day?
• In addition to the apple per day, what are other treatment options or things I should be doing to manage this disease/condition?

And it’s not just patients who find this information helpful. As Debra Miller, M.D., from the Mapleton Medical Center in Indiana told PatientPoint, “Staff and patients really love [your] brochures because it’s easy to get the information they need. Often, I walk into the exam room and the patient has already taken a brochure and has questions ready for me.”

By planting the seeds of knowledge before the script is ever written, you encourage a meaningful conversation between patients, staff and physicians about the disease and medication options. And while telling someone to eat an apple a day may result in temporary success, showing them why it’s an effective option can produce much more fruitful results.

SOURCES:

[1] http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=1852865

[2] http://www.talkaboutrx.org/documents/enhancing_prescription_medicine_adherence.pdf

[3] http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/818850

[4] http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/818850

Today’s most successful adherence programs focus on the patient, not the product

Developing successful patient adherence programs is a win on all fronts. Each year, a lack of patient adherence costs the U.S. healthcare system an estimated $290 billion. Indeed, payers benefit in the long run from reduced costs of healthier patients. Yet there are other far-reaching benefits beyond the potential billion-dollar savings. Patients who comply with medication and treatment programs often experience improved health outcomes, and these documented treatment programs can increase the amount of physician drug referrals and repeat prescriptions.

While the traditional approach to patient adherence has been a one-way street — that is, communicating to a patient about what he or she needs to do to stay on a treatment regimen — focusing on a more holistic approach that encourages conversation with the patient can greatly improve the success of your adherence programs.

This approach begins with program design. By ensuring that your program encompasses all facets of a patient’s unique healthcare situation — which includes not only the patient’s health condition and particular medication, but also the patient’s support system or caregivers, socioeconomic status, level of health literacy and other factors — you can set yourself up for success.

Let’s explore the best practices for connecting with patients and the ways you can make your adherence programs both relevant and customizable to the participants’ needs and preferences.

Step 1: Engage with the Patient

It may seem obvious, but it’s often overlooked: Your adherence program can only be as successful as the patients who are enrolled and engaged with it. That means making it easy for patients to learn more about your program and providing multiple access points for patients to register.

This step often begins with a physician. Many patients may not even be aware that these support programs and resources exist for their particular condition or while taking a certain medication. A prescribing physician can be an excellent gateway to acquiring patients for your programs who are interested and engaged from the start. Tap into this resource by reaching out to physicians who prescribe your medication, and share information and materials about the benefits of your program and the complementary support it provides to their patients. This can even prove to be a competitive differentiator. Later, once the program is underway, it’s critical to keep the communication with the physician open and to provide the physician with concise updates on the progress of a patient in a program.

By knowing your audience and recognizing the levels of engagement, you can recommend and deliver a multifaceted program that reaches the patient (as well as his or her caregiver, when necessary) and the physician.

Focusing on engagement from the start reminds us how the best adherence programs are patient-centered, not exclusively product-focused. In the next steps, we’ll explore the ways participants can help drive the conversation, and not be solely a listener, in these programs.

Step 2: Make Your Program Relevant

First things first: ditch the script. Whenever possible, your adherence program should feature applicable content delivered by flexible guides. Allowing your agents to use their own words within the guidelines of approved messaging is much more well-received by a patient than a script read word-for-word on a call.

Furthermore, have you considered the critical role your agents play in making your programs relevant? Your agents are more than message-deliverers; they are supporters, educators, and advocates, and they provide resources that are useful and helpful to each patient’s full scope of care. Consider the ways you can best match your agents with the content they deliver — for example, is healthcare background necessary? If so, would a certain healthcare specialty or other experience (such as social work or psychology) be most beneficial? Once you’ve found the appropriate match, allowing your patients and agents to develop one-to-one coaching relationships throughout the course of your program can pay dividends in improving patient satisfaction and compliance with the program.

Consider this example of a cancer adherence or support program. The nature of this type of program lends itself to having a qualified agent who is intimately familiar with the complexities of cancer care, such as an oncology nurse. While sharing the expected side effects of the treatment itself is important, it is crucial for the nurse to also become a complete resource to the patient — creating opportunities for two-way conversation in order to help the patient overcome their health challenges. That might mean answering questions or providing resources about how to cope with side effects (and directing back to the physician where appropriate), providing nutrition and stress management tips, or even assisting with the coordination of transportation or questions regarding insurance coverage.

Without a doubt, one of the key values of adherence programs that emphasize engagement is that the content itself is relatable and considers health literacy. Engagement-focused, patient-centered programs convey content in easily understandable, conversational terms; they stay fresh over the course of a program; and they empower patients to be involved in their care.

Step 3: Customize Your Program

Personalizing your adherence program can go a long way in achieving better outcomes. The program’s communications — or more specifically, the conversations that take place — should be customized to enhance engagement, increase the program’s success rates, and ultimately, improve the patient’s health.

Early on in your program, conversations with the patient can uncover personal barriers to adherence — physical, emotional, practical, or otherwise. These barriers can range from undesirable side effects (“This drug makes me feel nauseous”) to indifference (“It doesn’t matter if I really take this drug”) to cost (“I can’t afford to take this drug”). A personal relationship with the patient can allow an agent to pick up on those cues in conversation, so that these barriers can be addressed throughout the full course of the program.

Because patient side effects and adverse events can vary throughout a treatment regimen, it’s crucial for the agent to have that personal relationship with the patient so they can guide them through the treatment protocol, while also listening carefully to report key data that offers valuable insights to improve the patient’s health and, in the long run, potentially even improve the drug itself.

Once you have designed and implemented an adherence program that is engaging, relevant, and customizable to the patient, be sure to measure your program data to evaluate its success versus the developed outcomes criteria. Work with your client to understand the measures of success in their eyes. The data collected in your program can yield valuable insights to help you enhance your programs in the future.