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The aSpin Aspen™ - Spin Sports Festival is a
proactive initiative for RxSURE® that
began in 1999 with a research grant from the
National Institutes of Health. Experts from the
public and private sectors have joined forces
to address the communication breakdowns between
doctors, pharmacists and patients in order to
lower healthcare and insurance costs by decreasing
prescription errors. Revenues generated from
this festival will be used to continue funding
the development of a connectivity platform and
the production of a hardware devices for the
clinical trials that will be conducted and reproduced
at one or more of major hospitals located in
Denver, Colorado.
Adherence with prescribed drug regimens is a
problem in every medical discipline, with up
to half of patients failing to achieve full compliance
and a third never taking their medications at
all (McPhee, 2000). In emergency rooms,
46% of preventable medical-related visits totaling
over 17.6 million people were due to non-compliance
and 44% for inappropriate prescribing and monitoring
(Tafreshi, 1999). In terms of death rates, non-compliance
accounts for approximately 218,000 lives (Ernst & Grizzle,
2001), five times the number associated with
breast cancer.
50% of the information given to patients by
doctors on 2.8 billion prescriptions dispensed
annually is forgotten after 5 minutes of leaving
their offices (Gerner, 1995; Monks, 1997). The
annual U.S. price tag on direct and preventable,
drug-related morbidity and mortality costs associated
with non-compliance is $177.4 billion (Ernst
and Grizzle, 2001). Of that total, $121.5 billion
was the result of 9.6 million drug-related hospitalizations,
representing 28.2% of all hospitalizations. The
indirect costs associated with non-compliance
are estimated at 2 to 3 times direct costs (Sullivan,
1990).
The Solution:
Substantial
cost savings are created by the reduction of
unnecessary doctor or emergency room visits,
hospitalizations, and deaths. The distribution
of accurate and timely adherence information
minimizes costly
outcomes related to dosage, timing,
medication conflicts, prescription exchanges,
and other factors. Health Care Providers,
especially those with internal pharmacies,
benefit from the increased connectivity between
doctors and pharmacists. Such means to track
adherence, exchange data and assess outcomes
also helps the provider better negotiate drug
quantities and adjust their offerings to better
suit the needs of those paying for healthcare
coverage.
Pharmaceutical companies
constantly seek ways to reduce the high R & D
costs and assess a drug’s effectiveness
after it is on the market. RxSURE® offers
statistical adherence information, monitoring
means, and collective survey results without
the need to conduct supplementary trials or focus
groups on any given drug. The collective feedback
from pharmacists will help determine consumption
rates, undetected drug conflicts, alternative
uses, and necessary medication refinements.
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RxSURE