Many pharmaceutical companies run beyond-the-pill programmes which support patients toward successful treatments. The goal: improving outcomes by improving adherence. Specially-trained nurses call patients and inform them about their treatment and the specifics of their medication. To what extent do physicians consider these programmes helpful? And are quarterly phone calls still the adequate tool for patient support in the year 2015? smartpatient surveyed 100 neurologists about their preferences regarding patient support programmes. The key takeaway: Physicians appreciate the pharmaceutical industry’s support. However, they see substantial room for improvement and prefer an independent and product-neutral programme that allows for daily touch points with the patient.
Physicians view adherence as key success factor for therapeutic outcome
Among physicians, there is perfect consensus on the importance of adherence: 100% believe that adherence with the treatment plan is a key success factor for a good outcome. At the same time, only a minority of doctors believes their patients to comply with their treatment plans. Accordingly, they appreciate the industry's effort to support adherence with dedicated beyond-the-pill programmes.
Key elements of patient support: reminders, education, and documentation
When rating the importance of different elements of a patient support programme, physicians show a clear preference: 83% of the doctors surveyed perceive medication reminders as important. However, from their point of view, quarterly calls don’t do the trick here: moving the needle for adherence requires daily reminders. Educational content is important, too: information on the medication and the condition come in second (74%) and third (69%) place, respectively. While a health journal is still important to the majority of doctors (62%), other elements such as patient communities are perceived as less important.
Physicians prefer industry-independent support programmes
Should pharmaceutical companies run their own support programmes or should they rely on independent services? According to the physicians the answer is simple: Out of 100 neurologists, only 28% want the industry to run their own programmes. As for the physicians the industry can make a bigger impact through partnering: 94% say the industry should support independent programmes to increase medical adherence.
Conclusion and outlook
Support programmes are an important tool for supporting patients during their treatment and increasing medication adherence. From a physician’s standpoint, today's programmes hardly deliver to the most important support needs: Educating patients and reminding them of every single medication intake goes beyond the possibilities of phone-based support. This is where digital tools such as apps can engage patients on a whole new level: Residing on patients' smartphones they can effectively and efficiently support patients, 24 hours a day. And, unlike phone based programmes, digital tools come with costs structures that allow their deployment also in less-expensive conditions. The 'MyTherapy' software platform is one of the leading tools in these fields. Offered by the Munich-based company smartpatient, MyTherapy supports patients in managing their medication and documenting their condition. Showcased to the surveyed neurologists, MyTherapy received positive feedback: 96% view the app as valuable adherence support. Sebastian Gaede, founder and managing director at smartpatient, underlines the advantage in digital patient support: "Across all age and patient groups smartphones have become ubiquitous. To leverage this momentum, our pharma partners trust MyTherapy as the simplest, most effective, and most affordable way for supporting adherence on the large scale. To the benefit of patients, physicians, and themselves."
For further information, please visit:
http://www.smartpatient.eu
MyTherapy on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.smartpatient.mytherapy
MyTherapy on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/mytherapy-medication-reminder/id662170995?mt=8
About smartpatient
smartpatient helps patients to take their medication and to implement a healthy lifestyle. Patients of a wide range of conditions and all ages trust smartpatient’s award-winning MyTherapy platform for managing their medication. Clinically evaluated and strictly protecting users’ privacy, MyTherapy stands out as the European answer to digitally supporting the chronically ill. Partners from academia and the healthcare industry rely on smartpatient for improving health outcomes. MyTherapy is available for free on the iTunes App Store and Google Play.
Sebastian Gaede, Philipp Legge and Julian Weddige founded smartpatient in late 2012. The Munich-based company received numerous awards for the MyTherapy platform and the underlying research. Lately smartpatient won the "Smart Service World" technology contest of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.
For more information please visit: www.smartpatient.eu