European

Commission
European Innovation
Partnership on
Active & Healthy Ageing
Better prescription and
adherence to medical plans
for older patients
European Innovation
Partnership on
Active & Healthy Ageing
What is the European Innovation Partnership
on Active and Healthy Ageing?
The European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing is
a collaborative partnership with EU countries, regions, industry and
professionals aiming to improve older peoples healthy lives. Working
together in six thematic Action Groups, the partners are committing
themselves to nd and implement innovative solutions that meet the
needs of the ageing population. The ultimate aim is to increase the average
healthy lifespan of EU citizens by 2 years by 2020.
Prescription and adherence to medical plans:
an Action Group to deliver results for Europe
This Action Group brings together partners across the European Union from
local to national levels (health and care organisations, academia, industry,
enterprises and public authorities) which are committed to implementing
innovative solutions to improve older people adherence to medical
plans.
Poor adherence to medical plans is indeed a widespread phenomenon,
undermining the patients health as well as the eectiveness of therapy, and
has signicant implications on the costs sustained by healthcare systems.
The commitments
A Commitment is a set of measurable and concrete activities at local,
regional or national level performed by those stakeholders who have joined
the Partnership. More than 60 commitments of the present Action Group
contribute to a common Action Plan that will deliver progress in improving
older people adherence to health plans, as agreed by the partners.
Concepts
1
The American Heritage Medical Dictionary Copyright 2007, 2004 by Houghton Miin Company
Adherence to treatment: Adherence to treatment is dened as The
extent to which a patients behaviour (in terms of taking medication,
following a diet, changing habits or attending clinics) coincides with
medical or health advice
1
.
Our working areas
1. Improve patient adherence to medical plans through, for
instance, IT solutions which monitor the regular intake of drugs.
2. Empower the patients and care givers to take care of their
health and to be independent through, for example, improving
patients ability to understand their health status.
3. Deliver improvements in the health care systems through,
among the others, new organisational models aimed at developing
the competences and the connexion between health professionals.
4. Improve data evidence existing on ageing and adherence, for
instance by investigating the use of databases on prescriptions to
evaluate the eect of prescribed interventions on citizens health.
5. Help to better communicate among dierent actors in the healing
and caring process.
Success stories from the partners
In Spain, self-management by patients is being promoted within
a comprehensive chronicity strategy. Among the dierent actions,
chronic patients and carers are supported to train their peers with
the objective of improving their skills to take better control of their
health. A Personalized Pharmacotherapeutical Plan is included in
the Electronic Prescription tool in the Patient Electronic Health
Record. This information can be directly accessed by the patient
through the Online Personal Health Folder, enhancing long term
adherence to care plans. The overall strategy is expected to result
in 3,000 activated chronic patients by end of year 2014.
In Spain a Pharmaceutical Care programme by community
pharmacists is being developed to improve adherence to treatment
among the elderly chronic patients. It builds on a pilot conducted in
2010 that showed an increase of adherence to treatment for this
target population from 41.2% to 70.6% afer structured pharmacist
intervention. Other objectives of this program are to contribute to
the sustainability and eciency of the health system (e.g. reducing
medicines waste,) and develop new models of communication
between health professionals and patients, and among health
professionals. This project will also assess the contribution to adherence by using
innovative IT tools such as, for instance, e-prescriptions, patients medication
electronic records, remote warnings and a specic electronic tool to facilitate
monitoring.
In The Netherlands a society wide Healthy Ageing strategy is deployed. A
specic action is on analysis of a large pharmacy prescription database with
more than 500,000 patients. Use and outcomes will be determined during
periods of conditional reimbursement and adherence will be measured. In
addition a large project on Health Literacy, involving other European countries,
is on-going: it will develop a comprehensive intervention model for addressing
Health Literacy needs in older adults and formulate guidelines for policy and
practice for health literacy in all EU member states.
In Scotland monitoring is taking place in community pharmacies of patients
taking new medicines and high risk drugs which will address adherence issues
and any care issues related to a patients medication. This will be available for up
to 1.9 million people in Scotland providing integrating local services provided by
GPs, pharmacists and other community practioners. Of the patients registered
for the service, 99% of these have care plans that address issues regarding
medication. Through national guidance and risk assessment tools, patients
taking multiple drugs are reviewed with the active involvement of pharmacists
who review medication and follow up patients adherence. This will hope to
reduce hospital admissions due to adverse side- eects of medication. A specic
guidance document and an electronic monitoring tool are produced in order to
support pharmacists action. Factors such as co-morbidities and dementia were
identied as those where the patient may need more support.
For more information
https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/eipaha/
@EIP_AHA
EC-EIP-AHA@ec.europa.eu