Medication Adherence
Are you taking your medications properly?
As COVID-19 continues to shine a spotlight on public health, a recent study points to what pharmacists are calling another serious healthcare issue that needs our attention: medication adherence.
A national survey conducted in January by Pharmasave shows that 26 per cent of 10,000+ respondents admitted that they took their medication differently than prescribed or stopped a medication altogether without consulting their doctor or pharmacist.
Unsurprisingly, not taking medications properly results in poor treatment outcomes. An analysis by the World Health Organization suggests that 10-25% of hospital and nursing home admissions result from patient non-adherence.
Even before COVID-19, the WHO declared that the rise of chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, respiratory disease, and cancer was a “slow motion disaster”, contributing to about 70 percent of deaths globally. With the pandemic being an ongoing burden on our medical system, it is more critical than ever for people to take their prescribed medications properly.
There are many reasons for non-adherence, with the most common examples being: forgetting to take them, side effects, the medication is too expensive and/or not covered, or the feeling like their condition is improving or no longer an issue and that the medicine is no longer needed.
Your pharmacist can be very helpful in solving many of these potential issues. At Pharmasave, we offer many services that can help improve medication adherence. A few examples are: blister-packaging, which is great when a person is taking multiple medications, especially if they are to be taken at various times of the day. Med-Align is another service that we offer to synchronize the refills on all regular medications, so that they all come due for refills at the same time. Medication reviews offer a chance to sit down with a pharmacist for a one-on-one consultation regarding an assessment of all of your current medications, and can help to address issues such as potential side effects, when medications should be taken, what each medication is being used for, or whether or not less expensive alternatives may exist when cost is a concern.
These types of services (among others) are what help make your pharmacist such an important resource for optimizing treatments and improving health outcomes.
For more information on tips on medication adherence, visit: www.pharmasave.com.
