Patient Reported Outcomes Can Predict & Curb Non-Adherence
On average, it is estimated that over 50% of patients eventually abandon their treatment. Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) could facilitate efforts to reduce these figures. Defined as any data coming directly from patients about how they feel or function in relation to a health condition or its treatment – with no clinician interpretation to remove the patient ‘voice,’ PROs could help health organisations better optimise their ability to deliver high quality care to each individual who needs it. When patients do not take their medication as intended, patients do not meet their therapeutic goals, biopharmaceutical companies cannot maximise their commercial potential, and payers are burdened with increasing healthcare costs.
With the transformation from a provider-dominated market to one where the patient is central, there is an increasing emphasis on subjective, rather than objective, patient outcomes. Therapies need to better reflect patient needs if drug developers and healthcare providers hope to align with the reward-for-outcomes that payers insist upon and might place a premium on. PROs are proving to be a great source for insights on patient needs and thus potentially reveal effective solutions to curbing non-persistence with medication. PROs provide information on health, including symptom status, physical function, social function, and wellbeing as reported by the patient.
Today, data analytics have advanced to the point that PRO data can be used to predict which patients have a relatively high risk for non-adherence.