Compliance tool will protect pharmacy turf

Simone Roberts

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia has developed the tool, called MedsIndex, to help improve compliance with chronic disease medications.

The tool gives a patient a simple score out of 100 for each of their medicines for chronic illness. The score is calculated by monitoring repeat refill intervals of medicines and reporting against expected refill intervals. The score can be determined even if the patient uses multiple pharmacies. Pharmacists and their staff can use the score to assess compliance and develop strategies with the patient to improve it.

The program was developed in response to alarming figures showing that more than 50 per cent of patients do not take their medicines as directed.

The Guild says while there are systems and tools to support patients with compliance, until now there has been no simple index for a consumer to understand how compliant they are with their medicines.

Guild president, Kos Sclavos, says the project will be proven a success when MedsIndex is incorporated into everyday pharmacy practice, with inclusion in every HMR report through to regular feedback on scores for every patient on a CN concessional or SN entitlement card, and those patients on multiple chronic disease therapy medicines.

Mr Sclavos said the outcomes of implementing the system would be of industry-wide benefit, and would provide pharmacists with an opportunity to protect professional territory.

"Positive outcomes are felt by the patient, the pharmacist, the doctor, the pharmaceutical company and finally in health budget savings to the government," he said.