Medication adherence is a popular phrase in healthcare today, but what does that mean?
Medication adherence can be defined as how closely a patient follows the directions for how to take their medication. Many patients with controllable medical conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or high blood cholesterol remain in uncontrolled states due to non-adherence. It is estimated that as many as 75% of adults are considered nonadherent to at least one of their current medication therapies. Nation-wide this results in roughly $300 billion in healthcare costs that are associated with non-adherence. Unfortunately, many barriers can prevent a patient’s adherence and it is important that you and your healthcare providers are discussing and working together to prevent barriers that may exist for you. Barriers may include social factors such as a person’s ability to drive themselves to their pharmacy and economic factors like concerns about high cost of medications, patient’s perceptions of how important it is to take certain medications, forgetfulness, and poor communication between the patient and their medical team.
With the New Year in full swing, Walgreens is dedicated to helping you and your loved ones achieve adherence to your medications! Everyone has different routines and schedules when it comes to their medications, but today is a great day to challenge yourself to try some of the many resources that are available to help increase adherence and to find what works best you! Some resources that Walgreens has to offer include “Save a Trip Refills” program that works to refill many or all of your medications at the same time to prevent multiple trips to the pharmacy and 90 Day Refills that are proven to increase adherence by up to 20% by decreasing your chance of running out of medication between refills. Walgreens also offers Automatic Refills to help ensure refills are ready before you run out of medication and then relaying that your prescriptions are ready through a phone call, mail, or text message. Lastly, Walgreens offers a user friendly App to help simplify your healthcare and to make sure your medications are ready when you need them! Seniors using the Walgreens Mobile App pill reminder feature were anywhere from 16-24% more adherent to their medications for conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Please feel free to stop by and talk with your local pharmacists today to learn more about how they can help with increasing adherence.
This article is sponsored by Walgreens and the opinions and information are not necessarily those of Aging Ahead.