Patient adherence continues to be a very real obstacle to attaining positive outcomes for those with chronic conditions, such as autoimmune diseases and diabetes. Non-compliance, as we know, can result in poor clinical outcomes for patients. However, it can also mean lost revenue for pharmaceutical companies worldwide and increased costs for many stakeholders in healthcare, including patients themselves.
In recent years, combination products—which merge both the container and delivery system—have helped to reduce some of the barriers to compliance, such as discomfort, anxiety and cost. Because many combination products for chronic conditions are increasingly self-administered by patients and caregivers instead of a healthcare practitioner, the devices need to be easy-to-use and minimize discomfort. But perhaps just as important to adherence, combination products should work in a way that is compatible with patients’ lifestyles—they need to easily assimilate into their daily routines.
Whether as a standalone system or paired with technological advancements, such as smartphone apps, leveraging innovative combination products is an important step in improving patient adherence.
Creating Convenience in Administration
One reason for the rise in popularity of combination products is the convenience of self-administered medication. Instead of scheduling a doctor’s appointment for certain treatments, combination products allow patients to self-administer medication anywhere. For most patients, an easy-to-use, integrated delivery and administration system can be key to enabling the consistent routines that ensure compliance with treatment regimens.
When devices are intuitive and efficient, they reduce the impact on patients’ daily lives, increasing the potential for optimum adherence. Conversely, delivery and administration systems deemed inconvenient can negatively affect a patient’s emotional attitude and motivation to sustain adherent behavior. Discreetness of the device is also important. It enables use without calling undue attention. This shift from a product-centric focus to a patient-centric focus helps manufacturers develop the right systems for their customers and ultimately help improve patient health.
Designing for Affinity
To address multiple barriers to adherence, drug delivery designers are creating more sophisticated devices that minimize discomfort and foster an improved patient experience. However, another obstacle is rooted in patient motivation—companies need to design self-injection devices that patients were not only ‘able’ to use, but devices they also ‘want’ to use. Wearable technology that contains and delivers important drugs for chronic diseases, such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and anemia are not only personalizing the drug delivery experience, but can offer more accurate and timely drug delivery.
Creating a Customized Digital Health Ecosystem
Technology is a ubiquitous part our culture: music is downloaded, bills are paid, and appointments are made with smart devices. Incorporating everyday technology with medication administration allows patients to not only feel more connected with the process, but better positions them to maintain adherence. Many advances have been made in gamification of self-administration with combination products to engage the patient and reward them for sticking with their prescribed treatment regimen and taking advantage of opportunities for additional education regarding their chronic conditions.
Some applications allow patients to easily track dosage history, which can be analyzed and shared with physicians, resulting in vastly improved health outcomes. Whether for dose verification, troubleshooting, or providing a unique device identifier, there are a number of reasons for integrating electronics into drug delivery devices, even if they are disposable. For disposable combination products, low-tech ways of connecting devices to online platforms—such as near-field communication scanning and QR code scanning—are being explored.
Combination products offer an emerging solution to the ongoing challenges around patient adherence, and breakthroughs are emerging at a time when patients and healthcare providers desperately need them. By starting with better design and usability and expanding to provide opportunities to remind, track, and reward users for adherence, the potential for improved outcomes is tremendous. In a time when there is a growing demand in the marketplace to address ballooning healthcare costs and improve patient adherence the future for combination products, and the patients relying on them, is bright.
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