Self-Funded Patient Adherence Program Improves Outcomes and Product Revenues

March 23, 2011 - PRLog -- Getting patients to take their medications as prescribed by their physicians is recognized as an enormous problem. According to the New England Healthcare Institute, $290 billion is the annual cost attributed to poor adherence.

To date, most adherence programs have focused on reminding patients to take their medication. However, as evidenced by the magnitude of the problem, many patients are choosing not to take their medication. As Dr. Melissa Hunt, Associate Director, Clinical Training, University of Pennsylvania, points out, “Adherence is not simply blind compliance. Adherence is an active and voluntary choice by the patient.”

Not only have such adherence programs not understood the deeper psychological reasons why patients are choosing not to be adherent, but they have generally been costly to implement and difficult to track the return on investment.

It is with this challenge in mind that MEMOTEXT Patient Adherence Solutions and hcCatalyst are pleased to announce a strategic alliance to deploy a patient adherence solution that is not only self-funding but has been shown to significantly improve patient adherence and increase proper medication usage.

Michael Wong, Managing Director of hcCatalyst, explains further, “The combined MEMOTEXT-hcCatalyst program is based on the relationship that already exists between doctors, the pharmaceutical industry, and patients. By harnessing that relationship and motivating patients to join our adherence discussions, we are able to offer a program that is funded when patients are adherent and fill their prescriptions.”

MEMOTEXT integrates behavior modification, patient education and real-time patient support into the everyday lives of patients. This approach improves adherence using interactive behavioral assessments and social, mobile and speech telecommunications tools. Amos Adler, President of MEMOTEXT, says “MEMOTEXT programs have been able to achieve a retention rate of between 85%-95% and improve patient adherence between 17%-35%. With the addition of hcCatalyst’s Adherence Driver, even better results are expected.”

hcCatalyst’s Adherence Drive uses patients to motivate other patients to stay adherent, MEMOTEXT adds scalability and a glimpse of where patients are in their personal journey. The power of patient stories was recently studied in a clinical trial published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, “Culturally Appropriate Storytelling to Improve Blood Pressure”. As the researchers concluded, “The storytelling intervention produced substantial and significant improvements in blood pressure for patients with baseline uncontrolled hypertension.” For links to the study and the NY Times article on the trial, please see wp.me/p1fYJ7-5I


About hcCatalyst

hcCatalyst (www.hccatalyst.com) is a strategic consultant that mobilizes the public to solve tough issues that maximize formulary positioning, minimize issues, and improve patient adherence. hcCatalyst has developed the Adherence Driver, which utilizes adherent patient stories to improve adherence and health outcomes.  

About MEMOTEXT

The leader in speech, social and mobile, medication compliance interventions, MEMOTEXT integrates behaviour modification, education and real time support into the everyday lives of patients using technology appropriate to the patient population and condition. MEMOTEXT’s ability to learn and remember previously reported knowledge, intentions, and behaviours allow the treatment medication compliance platform to modify content and dialogues for the same individual over time. For more information about MEMOTEXT visit www.memotext.com or call 1-877-636-6898

Contact information

Amos Adler
President
MEMOTEXT
416-520-3301
amos@memotext.com

Michael Wong
Managing Director
hcCatalyst
847-770-5582
mwong@hccatalyst.com

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hcCatalyst is a strategic consultant that mobilizes the public to solve tough issues that maximize formulary positioning and improve patient adherence. We have developed the Adherence Driver, which utilizes adherent patient stories to improve adherence.