Tech, health care companies partner to fight epidemic of prescription misuse

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, UNITED STATES, May 12, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Each year, misuse of prescription medication causes 125,000 deaths; 10% of U.S. hospitalizations; and costs the U.S. health care system at least $300 billion. The reasons are many – high costs, personal beliefs, confusing regimens or forgetfulness – but the solutions are few and rarely address more than one underlying cause. Or they were, until RemediChain and PatchRx changed the game by offering no-cost medications and a patient engagement platform designed to boost adherence.

“In my experience, up to a third of prescriptions are never picked up,” said Phil Baker, pharmacist and co-founder of RemediChain. “At the same time, up to half of prescriptions that are filled aren’t being taken as prescribed. It leads to a lot of preventable health problems.”

Baker and his partners set out to address one common issue – high costs – through the nonprofit Good Shepherd Pharmacy, which offers its members medications at-cost or free. Through their blockchain technology company RemediChain, they also, after successfully changing a law in Tennessee, began accepting individual donations of unused, high-value oral chemotherapy to redistribute to patients in need. But they still had no way to effectively track patient adherence to these medications. Enter PatchRx.

“When we started Patch in 2018, we knew health care often overlooked an important member of the team in the prescribing and dispensing process – the patient,” said Gavin Buchanan, co-founder of PatchRx. “Since then we have worked diligently to combine technology and clinical insights to help simplify taking medications and improving health outcomes. We believe technology can improve relationships between the health care system and patients and provide insights that lead to better health.”

Now, in partnership with RemediChain, PatchRx will put its expertise and technology to work. The company’s software solutions send multi-level reminders to patients when it’s time to take their medication and seamlessly record when (and if) they do. The patients receive rewards for these efforts in the app and can allow “buddies” to receive notifications, which allows a caregiver or family member to support the patient in optimizing their medication adherence.

Beginning in June 2021, patients who receive free oral chemotherapy medication through RemediChain and Good Shepherd Pharmacy will opt in to utilizing PatchRx. Patients’ prescription bottles can be fitted with a PatchCap, an innovative device that is integrated with PatchRx software to seamlessly record administered doses. The team at Good Shepherd Pharmacy and RemediChain will utilize PatchRx clinical software to monitor compliance with the patients’ chemotherapy regimens. Currently, 18 patients are receiving no-cost oral chemotherapy through RemediChain, and the partners hope to have 50 participating patients over the next few months.

“Oral chemotherapy drugs check several boxes for noncompliance risk,” Baker said. “They’re generally incredibly expensive. They often have significant side effects. But they’re crucial to an individual who needs them. If we can improve adherence in this sector of health care, we can make a huge difference.”

The study will last six months for enrolled patients. Results will likely be available in early 2022. PatchRx plans to utilize insights from its partnership with RemediChain to get patients the medications they need; to provide them with the tools to take them correctly; and, ultimately, to improve their health.

About PatchRx
Started in 2018 by Andrew Aertker and Gavin Buchanan, PatchRx is dedicated to using technology to improve health outcomes. Through its first-of-its-kind PatchCap technology, the company is assisting clinical research facilities with patient adherence; helping the everyday consumer with their daily medications; and striving to mitigate the effects of the opioid crisis through controlled medication management. For more information, visit https://www.patchrx.io/.

About RemediChain
We believe surplus medication should be managed as a resource. The RemediChain platform incentivizes community members to text a picture of their unused prescriptions. When a chemotherapy is identified, the platform generates a prescription donation form and a link that covers the shipping costs to our facility. The medications are inspected by a licensed pharmacist for safety before being added to inventory. Our virtual inventory is made available to a network of cancer centers across the nation connecting vulnerable patients with cancer treatment they would not receive by any other means. RemediChain's #FlipYourScrip program was named a World Changing Ideas finalist by Fast Company in 2021. For more information, visit www.remedichain.org.

Brittany Mizell
Obsidian Public Relations
email us here