As a healthcare provider (HCP), you know that it’s important that your patients understand the benefits, potential risks and other key information to help promote safe and appropriate medicine use. Your communications approach can help clarify patients’ concerns and questions about taking certain medications when prescribed or recommended as part of a treatment regimen.
Nearly half of Americans take a prescription medicine, and over 20% take at least three. Yet new research shows that approximately 62% of patients are not aware of any safety warnings about their prescription medicines, and 10% of patients, unaware of possible severe reactions to or side effects of the medicines they are taking, actually experience a serious drug reaction. Along with other data, these findings underscore the need to stimulate effective conversations about prescriptions with your patients.
As an HCP, it’s a given that one of your goals is to establish strong working relationships and effective communication with your patients, who turn to you first when they have questions about their health. The following facts and tips are designed to stimulate conversations about prescription medicines.
According to BeMedWise’s Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviors Concerning Risk and Safety Information of Medicines: A Survey of Consumers/Patients and HCPs in the US:
These facts shed new light on how important HCP/patient communication is to medicine adherence improvement and a balanced discussion of a prescription medicine’s benefits and potential risks, opening the door to more productive conversations. While you are probably incorporating most if not all of the following tips, they will remind you that, “you don’t know what your patients don’t know!”
Interested in improving your patient conversations? Check out these ready-to-use tools. Learn more about the Talk Before You Take Campaign.
i Ipsos Healthcare. “Knowledge, Attitudes and Behaviors Concerning Risk and Safety Information of Medicines: A Survey of Consumers/Patients and HCPs in the U.S.” An Internal Report (supported by FDA CDER Grant number 5U18FD004653). 2013. Washington, DC.
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