Dr Suman Katragadda, CEO & Founder, HEAPS highlights that the current healthcare system is disjointed in nature, with healthcare providers, payers and patients all operating in silos. This is where the problem of patient non-compliance stems from because post hospital visits/hospitalisations, patients are pretty much on their own and they bear a large chunk of the responsibility for their own medical wellbeing
The word compliance is almost always synonymous with companies and organisations adhering to guidelines, rules and regulations. However, in the healthcare ecosystem, patient non-compliance refers to the act of patients not following their medication regimen or lab works or physician visits as prescribed by their healthcare providers.
Across the world, when a person seeks medical attention, it is the duty of the physician/ examiner to assess the patient’s medical history and then prescribe an appropriate treatment plan. Whether it is chronic conditions, infectious diseases or metabolic disorders, prescription medication is almost always the first step towards care. Once discharged from care, it is the responsibility of the patient to adhere to the medication routine and follow-up on a regular basis with their healthcare provider. However, more often than not, statistics state that about 30 to 50 per cent of patients do not take their medications as prescribed depending on the disease conditions they have.
When patients fail to comply with their medications, they simply aren’t getting the right dosage of medicine into their bodies at the right time. And this can lead to seriously poor health outcomes, increased utilisation of overall healthcare resources such as increased admission/readmissions to hospitals and more frequent doctor visits, this is particularly true for people with chronic conditions such as diabetes, COPD, heart disease and hypertension who need constant healthcare monitoring and are required to stick to a strict medication regime. Not taking medication can result in prolonged illness, a weakened immune system, and lead to a risk of serious and life-threatening complications. Non-compliance and non-adherence have, thus, become the leading cause for concern in the medical community and there has been an increase in the number of cases of resistance, morbidity and mortality due to it.
Why does patient non-compliance happen and what can we do about it?
One of the first steps to solving this problem understands the root cause of patient non-compliance? There are many reasons why patients don’t adhere to their medication routine, they can range from forgetfulness and fear to lack of symptoms or too many medications and confusion. Whatever the reasons may be, in order to improve disease burdens globally, healthcare providers and other members of the ecosystem need to work in tandem to solve this problem.
Here is where the role of a care manager comes into play. The current healthcare system is disjointed in nature, with healthcare providers, payers and patients all operating in silos. This is where the problem of patient non-compliance stems from because post hospital visits/hospitalisations, patients are pretty much on their own and they bear a large chunk of the responsibility for their own medical wellbeing. This is the stage when patients tend to falter and fall off the radar in terms of sticking to medication and other healthcare routines as prescribed by physicians. A care manager’s role is to continuously educate and coach a patient on the importance of adherence and compliance gradually introduces changes in their behaviours. This can be done by leveraging technological advancements in healthcare tech platforms, data from health tracking apps and devices, and most importantly, the creation of unified health records for each patient.
A Unified Health Record (UHR) is a significant step in healthcare that helps to aggregate data from multiple sources to create a 360° holistic view of a patient’s health. UHRs can hold information on patient background, genomic data, and financial information and most importantly, treatment information and device data that could help healthcare providers track patient adherence and compliance.
Patient non-compliance remains one of the biggest challenges in the healthcare system today as it leads to unfavourable outcomes for all the stakeholders involved, i.e. patients, payers and healthcare providers. Hence, there is a genuine need to leverage technology to optimise patient care without compromising on outcomes through continuous patient engagement.
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