It Is Time to Radically Shift Our Perspective About Nonadherence

The End of Nonadherence Improving patient adherence has been a decades-long priority for nearly every health care stakeholder1—except for patients. It is well known that poor medication adherence is responsible for both avoidable spending and avoidable poor health outcomes—yet there have not been adherence marches in the streets demanding that people take their medication as prescribed. Whether or not we as providers choose to hear them, patients are telling us: Nonadherence is a system failure, not a patient problem. In a recent article for Academic Medicine, we introduce the IDEAS framework for optimal team-based prescribing.2 It is our hope that this framework will not only help increase patient-centric prescribing practices, but will also help catalyze a system-wide transformation in how health care stakeholders conceptualize the etiology of nonadherence. It is time to stop thinking about patient nonadherence as a patient behavior and start redesigning the health care system for achievable health. Ending Nonadherence by Increasing Patient Support Just like the word noncompliance that came before it, nonadherence is a euphemism for a patient failing to follow a provider-created treatment plan. Imagine how a physician in today’s clinical environment would develop follow-up recommendations after learning that a patient with uncontrolled blood pressure has not been taking her antihypertensive medications. The physician might create a plan to improve patient non...
Source: Academic Medicine Blog - Category: Universities & Medical Training Authors: Tags: Featured Guest Perspective adherence health care health system patient centered care Source Type: blogs