Pharmacies and medication adherence : a customer-oriented opportunity analysis

Medication non-adherence is one of the most costly and difficult problems in healthcare today. In the United States alone, half of the 3.5 billion prescriptions dispensed are not taken as prescribed, costing our healthcare system an estimated $100 billion. Ten percent of all hospitalizations and 125,000 deaths each year are attributable directly to non-adherence to medicines. Medication non-adherence is a complex, multi-faceted problem and potential ways to increase adherence to medications traditionally have focused on the physician - patient relationship. However, medication dispensing requires an additional interaction between the pharmacy and patient, and properly-incentivized pharmacies employing unique adherence programs may be capable of enhancing adherence above and beyond existing methods. This thesis explores how traditional chain and independent drugstore pharmacies 1) prioritize medication adherence; and 2) may benefit from instituting medication adherence programs. The hypothesis tested was that pharmacies would benefit substantially from instituting adherence programs.

Department dc:contributor.department

Sloan School of Management.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Kalayoglu, Murat Veysel

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Barbara Bund.

• Sloan School of Management.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/37119

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37119