Poor Treatment Adherence

Poor treatment adherence is a significant public health issue, affecting various stakeholders. This issue leads to fewer treatments utilized, poorer health outcomes, increased relapses and hospitalizations, higher costs, and 350 unnecessary deaths daily. Without personal adherence education, tools, and support, 67% of patients with chronic conditions stop taking their medications within 24 months, with even worse rates for behavioral health and addiction treatments.

• Healthcare Costs: Poor adherence adds $290 billion to healthcare costs and $100 billion to avoidable hospital visits.
• Productivity Losses: Employers face $350 billion in productivity losses annually due to health issues from poor adherence.

Mobile applications can significantly improve treatment adherence, health outcomes, and reduce costs. Health systems offer third-party apps to their members, such as Kaiser providing Calm and Headspace to behavioral health patients.

12-step programs are effective but require patient opt-in and adherence, which are often not achieved. Similarly, over a quarter of new medication prescriptions are never taken. Providers need tools to help patients start and adhere to their treatment processes.

To improve healthcare, we propose an adherence platform that does not offer proprietary content but enables organizations to distribute their free and paid content. This platform would:

• Allow large and small providers to engage patients in new ways.
• Enable consumers to subscribe to various interventions, create, track, and share healthy practices.
• Provide peer, provider, and technology support to improve treatment adherence and outcomes.

This platform offers a scalable solution, eliminating the need for entities like the VA to develop and manage multiple apps, and giving small providers a way to effectively reach their patients.

Citations:

1. NIH Study on Medication Adherence
2. SAMHSA on Peer Support
3. NIH on Peer Support and Addiction Recovery