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NEW YORK — Just as no two patients are alike, no single strategy should serve as the approach to improving medication adherence.
That’s one of the principles behind the Patient Empowerment Program (PEP) that can be used by pharmacists to help improve compliance. The patient-specific medication adherence program is based on Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s Medication Adherence Study and the “11 Dimensions of Nonadherence.”
PEP is available for complimentary use as an iPad app that provides pharmacies with a built-in three- to five-minute patient self-assessment that identifies the top three dimensions (such as ineffective communication, monetary concerns and a general mistrust of health care providers) affecting adherence as well as targeted interventions for each patient.
To access PEP for an iPad, the user searches and downloads PEP for the pharmacy from the iTunes app store (or snaps the QR code with the iPad to launch the app). The user then downloads the PEP Toolkit, which includes such features as a quick-start guide, an intervention handbook, recommendations for promoting PEP as well as a frequently asked questions (FAQ) section and PEP-related sticker templates and logo.
Pharmacists can access the app and PEP Toolkit through PharmacySatisfaction.com.
A pharmacist who lacks an iPad can still download, print and use many of the program components with a patient.
The FAQ section of PEP provides a patient with vital information about the free program to help him or her get the most out of the medications taken regularly and describes how PEP allows the pharmacy staff to provide the patient with information specific to his or her medication needs.
“The PEP information is different from what you usually get with your prescriptions — it’s not about the medications you take, it’s about learning to make your medicine work better for you,” the section explains.
Pharmacies have a variety of options for promoting PEP, including having pharmacy staff ask patients to complete a brief patient assessment while they’re waiting for a prescription to be filled, printing a message about PEP on pharmacy receipts, advertising the program in weekly store circulars and calling attention to the program via a store’s interactive voice response system.
Other promotional options incorporate the inclusion of a PEP-related message in e-mails to patients or sending a special e-mail to all patients, advertising PEP in a store’s over-the-counter aisles; hosting an in-store PEP enrollment event on a specific day; making PEP-related announcements over the store’s intercom system; and contacting patients who have not picked up their prescriptions to ask them about their reasons for not doing so, followed by an introduction to PEP and a request that those patients come in to the store to complete an adherence assessment.
