Medication adherence is one of the biggest challenges in healthcare. According to the World Health Organization, non-adherence can account for up to 50% of treatment failures, an estimated 125,000 deaths, and up to 25% of hospitalizations each year in the United States. Adherence is a key performance indicator that all pharmaceutical companies look at. With the advent of new technologies and data mining capabilities, the measurement of success for pharma needs to be redefined. The key performance indicator that is going to best serve the patient, healthcare providers, and pharmaceutical companies is what we call return on health or ROH.
When we say return on health, we are redefining the measurement of success based on two criteria 1) Medication adherence 2) Wellness achievements. This expanded definition of success is essential because the goal of therapy is to help you feel better. It’s generally not the case that a patient will achieve wellness on medication compliance alone. For example, if you are diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes you will be given a prescription to control your blood sugar. But if you don’t also exercise, watch your calorie intake, get good quality sleep, and reduce your stress, then your sugars are still going to be out of whack even if you take the medication. Doing all those things together defines the new KPI of return on health.
Data Driven
All the contributing factors to whether or not you get a good return on health can be managed and measured using technology. The technology platform of RxPx supports behaviours that lead to wellness achievements and the resulting data further advances care. RxPx provides private social networks for patients and their circle of care. It is used by drug manufacturers worldwide to support patients with dedicated peer-to-peer communities. It provides personal health tools including side effect and wellness trackers and medication reminders. It also enhances health literacy for patients by providing evidence-based resources.
As patients use the platform, data inputs are generated. These interactions will be data captured so we can tell you what’s effective, what’s less effective, what’s more effective, what should we do more of, what should we do less of, and what is engaging patients. The data will trigger interventions when needed. Let’s use as an example a university student who has been diagnosed with asthma. She records that she didn’t sleep well last night. She records the same thing for the next three days which is a pattern. At this point the system does something to give her some suggestions on how to get better quality of sleep. Because lack of sleep is going to cause stress, and frustration, which is going to cause anxiety, which is going to cause her to do less exercise or trigger an asthma attack. The data facilitating technology can change behaviour which by definition would therefore lead to a return on health for the individual.
Beyond Adherence
We’ve traditionally measured adherence using a limited data set. At RxPx we can capture empirical data, self-reported data, social data, and health literacy data. We combine those all together and weight them according to their value, for the individual and for the situation. Data and data driven intervention are what are underpinning and measuring the accurate and timely measurement of the KPI return on health.
Personalized at Scale
In a RxPx case study, a pharmaceutical company was losing patients early due to a manageable side effect. We leveraged a platform integrated with current patient support services to deliver custom content, coaching and peer support to educate patients on the benefits of persistent therapy. The outcome is that 92% of the population are still on therapy past the original expected drop off date. The pharmaceutical company was elated because they were predicting a material loss of patients.
We have not yet lost a customer. I think the nature of that is that pharmaceutical companies want to engage with patients. They genuinely want people to feel better on their product. The old model of measuring success on adherence alone does not encapsulate what can be attained by measuring wellness achievements as well. The new measure of success is the return on health. The important component to changing return on health is having a dynamic, responsive, platform to do so.
To learn more about how RxPx can help build your return on health, book a free demo with the RxPx team. Please reach out at contact@rxpx.health.
