Diplomat Pharmacy has released some data about its partnership with smart pill bottle maker AdhereTech as the companies also announced plans to expand that deal.
The data, representative of more than 1,000 patients, shows that on average, patients who used the technology filled their medication one additional time over the course of the year. Patient retention was 12% higher, and the average patient experienced 19 fewer “gap days” (days of skipped medication because of a delayed refill).
AdhereTech’s smart pill bottle is cellular-connected, so it doesn’t require that the user have a smartphone or any other technology. The bottle can light up and make sound to remind patients to take their medications. It can also send text messages and trigger phone calls, which can also be used to gather feedback that can help providers, pharmacies or researchers understand reasons for nonadherence.
The expansion will make the technology available to thousands more patients, according to the companies.
WHY IT MATTERS
Diplomat is the largest independent specialty pharmacy in the United States, so both its decision to employ digital health technology and its results are notable. Although the company shared only three data points, they do point to a potentially high ROI, since one refill per patient per year adds up to a lot of revenue.
WHAT’S THE TREND
The data mostly lines up with results that AdhereTech has shared previously. When the company raised its growth equity funding round last fall, CEO Josh Stein told MobiHealthNews that data from other commercial deployments has shown that the platform improves duration on therapy by 26%, fill rates by 9% and dose-level adherence by 15% for specialty medications.
ON THE RECORD
“We’re proud to partner with AdhereTech to provide our patients with one more tool to manage chronic and complex conditions,” Gary Rice, EVP at Diplomat, said in a statement. “Diplomat’s philosophy is ‘Take good care of patients and the rest falls into place.’ Accordingly, this program improves patients’ treatment experience and enhances patient care.”
