Removing barriers in managing chronic diseases

The changing times have also brought changes in the way chronic diseases are managed. Far from being a passive observer, patients with chronic diseases are now playing a more active role in the management of their illnesses. However, this participation can sometimes do more harm than good.

Ideally, patients should follow their doctors’ advice when it comes to their treatment regimen. Yet, a myriad of factors often lead patients to disobey their doctors’ advice, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

For example, economic reasons may force a patient to alter his dosing regimen. Non-affordability often results in difficulty in buying and therefore, utilizing medicines.

Worse, the patient might stop taking his medication entirely when he realizes that he is spending a sizable amount of his salary for his medications.

Even for chronic diseases wherein long-term treatment is very important, the patient will not take the medicine for the simple reason that it costs too much.

Complications

The patient might think that he is saving the money which is supposed to be spent on his medicine. On the contrary, that act of thriftiness may lead him to a more expensive scenario. He could spend more because of the complications that may arise due to his failure to take his medicines.

In developing countries where majority of the population is living below the poverty line, the price of a medicine is an important factor in determining whether a patient will adhere to a treatment regimen.

A survey conducted by the World Health Organization showed that almost 50 percent of people living in impoverished countries do not have access to medicine. This is alarming since most of the patients suffering from chronic diseases live in Third World countries.

In the Philippines, the program of pharmacoeconomics is slowly gaining popularity. Its principle is to help the patient follow the required treatment by providing him with a bioequivalent medicine at a more reasonable cost. Bioequivalence means that the drug is safe and has the same therapeutic effect of the originator product.

Clamor

Doctors and patients have long been clamoring for more affordable yet equally effective medicines. Through pharmacoeconomics, medical practitioners now have alternatives to the more expensive drugs plus the assurance that the medicine prescribed is really taken by the patient in the right dosage.

Being the first one to decide what medicine should be bought, the physicians now have the chance to improve healthcare in the country. Doctors will feel more fulfilled because they can now better manage and treat diseases.

On the part of patients, the primary benefit of pharmacoeconomics is an improved compliance in taking their medicines, especially with chronic diseases wherein medicines have to be taken religiously for years and even for life.

This also means a guaranteed protection for a longer period of time and a better quality of life.

Unilab, a leading pharmaceutical company in the country, is committed to help improve healthcare delivery to every Filipino family by providing effective and reasonably priced medicines for chronic diseases and other common medical problems.