The pharmacist's role in patient adherence
Ema Paulino, a member of the board of the Italian National Association of Pharmacies, talks to eyeforpharma about the role of the pharmacist and technology in improving patient compliance.
By on Jun 28, 2010Ema Paulino, a member of the board of the Italian National Association of Pharmacies, talks to eyeforpharma about the role of the pharmacist and technology in improving patient compliance.
E4P: Can you outline how you are getting better treatment adherence from your patients?
EP: We have a software application that stores information on our patients, including compliance data. The system knows when patients should be coming in for repeat prescriptions, and raises alerts if they don't.
What do you do if you dont have everything you need in your database?
Talking to patients is vital. For example, some of them are using advanced delivery devices such as inhalers, and they need to understand how to use them. They are also understandably worried about side effects. The point is that the pharmacy is more available to patients for lengthy discussions. The relationship with their doctor is much more focused on diagnosis than on use of medicines. The pharmacy is much more accessible to the public; they can go in any time without an appointment.
Apart from prescription alerts, what else does the software application provide?
We can issue customized information leaflets for patients. These are especially useful for medical devices and special delivery systems. With regard to side effects, although package inserts do cover these, they are not very easy to read. Anti-depressant drugs are a good example. For these, side effects are very often transient, and patients need to understand that they will mostly disappear after two weeks or so. That's the kind of thing that can be explained face to face, and with the support of an information sheet printed off especially for that patient.
What other types of treatment respond well to this approach?
We have had very good results with products for smoking cessation. The system enables us to follow the patient in the long term, and generally to promote health literacy so the benefits are wider than just getting them to take their medication.
How about interactions with the patient's cliniciana three-way partnership among patient, doctor, and pharmacist?
Yes, we are well aware how important that is. We can generate a patient profile from the system, showing among other things how the patient is complying with treatment. We can share that with their doctor, but only with the patient's consent. In fact, it's much better if we give the report to the patient, as a letter that they can give personally to their doctor. That way, the patient has far better ownership of their healthcare. It only works if the patient can feel that they trust the pharmacist.
So how is this going down with patients?
Most of them are very cooperative, and value the relationship they have with us, as well as feeling more valued themselves.
For more on the role of pharmacies in adherence, see 'How pharmacists can help improve patient compliance' and 'The pharmacist as an ally in patient adherence'.