Executive Summary – Sept. 11, 2012
Closing the Quality Gap Series: Medication Adherence Interventions: Comparative Effectiveness
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Table of Contents
- Background
- Scope and Key Questions
- Methods
- Results
- Discussion
- Conclusions
- References
- Full Report
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Background
Achieving the goal of quantitatively improving the quality and effectiveness of health care for all Americans requires both knowledge and tools. Although medical researchers have demonstrated many efficacious medical treatments to improve health outcomes, a recent Institute of Medicine report identified a disquieting discrepancy between present treatment success rates and those thought to be achievable.1 This gap has been attributed partly to barriers that providers face in implementing best practice guidelines.1,2 Patients’ adherence to treatment, however, provides an additional explanation for the incongruity between recommended treatment and actual treatment outcomes.Poor medication adherence is relatively common.3,4 Studies have shown consistently that 20 to 30 percent of medication prescriptions are never filled and that, on average, 50 percent of medications for chronic disease are not taken as prescribed.5,6
This lack of adherence to medications is not only prevalent, but also has dramatic effects on individual and population-level health.5,7-16 Nonadherence has been estimated to cost the U.S. health care system between $100 billion and $289 billion annually in direct costs.3,5,17-20 Strong evidence suggests that benefits attributable to improved self-management of chronic diseases could result in a cost-to-savings ratio of approximately 1:10.21-27
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