Patient-centered priorities for improving medication management and adherence

The Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics convened a workshop to examine the scientific evidence on medication adherence interventions from the patient-centered perspective and to explore the potential of patient-centered medication management to improve chronic disease treatment.

Patients, providers, researchers, and other stakeholders (N = 28) identified and prioritized ideas for future research and practice. We analyzed stakeholder voting on priorities and reviewed themes in workshop discussions.

Ten priority areas emerged. Three areas were highly rated by all stakeholder groups: creating tools and systems to facilitate and evaluate patient-centered medication management plans; developing training on patient-centered prescribing for providers; and increasing patients' knowledge about medication management. However, priorities differed across stakeholder groups. Notably, patients prioritized using peer support to improve medication management while researchers did not.

Engaging multiple stakeholders in setting a patient-centered research agenda and broadening the scope of adherence interventions to include other aspects of medication management resulted in priorities outside the traditional scope of adherence research.

Workshop participants recognized the potential benefits of patient-centered medication management but also identified many challenges to implementation that require additional research and innovation.