Introduction
Each patient-caretaker interaction remains an individualized experience, with the personality of all parties and their attitude towards health playing a particular part within the healthcare process. People may decide not to adhere to their medical practitioner’s advice for a variety of reasons, opting out of taking the prescribed medicine or even ignoring received recommendations regarding dosage. However, overseeing the medication intake of each client in terms of quantity and recurrence requires not only the means for the creation of such a control mechanism but also additional extensive work with patients.
Requirements
Managing medication compliance and safety thus becomes an essential facet of patients’ healthcare, which medical institutions may accomplish in a variety of ways. Implementing technologies to remind patients to take their medicine, such as notifying phone applications or specially designed pill containers, can be a viable option, as well as working with the population and providing educational information (Seabury, Gupta, Philipson, Henkhaus, & PhRMA Medication Adherence Advisory Council, 2014).
A study by Mohsin-Shaikh, Garfield, and Franklin (2014) found that overall patients exhibit a desire to be included in their healthcare process, questioning their practitioner regarding prescription dosages and choices. Therefore, utilizing clients’ interest in their healing process may be possible, necessitating an informative approach to patients and providing them with a variety of mindful tactics.
Resource Availability Barriers to Adoption
Creating a support structure for forgetful patients and a motivational one for those, who do not think of therapy and medical prescriptions as the solution to their conditions, requires the involvement of different medical professionals. The existence of “structural barriers such as fragmented care or poor coordination among multiple caregivers” complicates the implementation of an institution-wide stance on medication compliance (Seabury et al., 2014, p. 776).
An appropriate example would be the fact that healthcare professionals, doctors, and nurses may not agree in regards to whose responsibility patients’ self-medication is, making an essential aspect of medication safety a grievously overlooked one (Mohsin-Shaikh et al., 2014). Therefore, achieving the required degree of internal organization and systematization, which could provide patients with sufficient information regarding medication safety and compliance, as well as the necessary resources, becomes a significant prerequisite to its adoption.
Monetary Issues
A lack of financial resources may augment the hindrances, which both professional discoordination and the absence of a standardized stance impose on the betterment of patients’ wellbeing through medication adherence. Educating staff in regards to the appropriate procedure, as well as the benefits of patients’ medicinal literacy, involves extensive training that requires both time and money (Seabury et al., 2014).
Additionally, recognizing nonadherence relies initially on patients’ self-reports and, therefore, involves a degree of inaccuracy, making necessary devising a questioning method that can adequately reflect clients’ medicine-taking habits (Culig & Leppee, 2014). Researching the effectivity of various questionnaires, training staff, providing educational resources to clients, and procuring a sufficient number of remembrance tactics, such as pill bottles, all require additional financing.
Despite the financial demands that the incorporation of a system designated to oversee medical adherence may pose on medical institutions, the advantages of heightened medication compliance may outweigh the disadvantages. Patients’ nonadherence is expensive, costing “$100 billion to $300 billion per year,” therefore necessitating a reevaluation of approaches to patients’ health care (Seabury et al., 2014, p. 780). If prevention is better than the cure, then it might be necessary to recognize the benefit of educating patients to avoid medical non-compliance over consequently caring for them.
Conclusion
Various factors pose significant problems when attempting to implement an extensive and beneficial approach to medication compliance and safety use, ranging from a lack of funding to discoordination between professionals. The convenience of such a program is irrefutable, since even the most compliant patients may be merely forgetful, but the strain that it would put on an institution’s budget makes it difficult to implement. Therefore, analyzing the benefits of integrating medication compliance and safety education and mindfulness tactics into the healthcare process may need to be achieved on a case-by-case basis, considering all the significant factors influencing patients’ healthcare.
References
Culig, J., & Leppee, M. (2014). From Morisky to Hill-Bone; Self-reports scales for measuring adherence to medication. Collegium Antropologicum, 38(1), 55-62. Web.
Mohsin-Shaikh, S., Garfield, S., & Franklin, B. D. (2014). Patient involvement in medication safety in hospital: An exploratory study. International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy, 36(3), 657–666. Web.
Seabury, S. A., Gupta, C. N., Philipson, T. J., Henkhaus, L. E., & PhRMA Medication Adherence Advisory Council. (2014). Understanding and overcoming barriers to medication adherence: A review of research priorities. Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy, 20(8), 775-783. Web.