Evaluation of a medication refill reminder system for a community pharmacy.

The problem of maintaining compliance in patients taking chronic medications is well established. One recommended approach to reducing this problem is to develop a system which identifies non-compliers in order that interventions can be devised to improve that behavior. A medication refill reminder system is an example of this approach. The refill behavior was observed for 102 cardiovascular patients who were patrons of one community pharmacy in order to assess the effects of a postcard/telephone reminder system. Patients who failed to refill their prescriptions on time were sent a postcard reminding them to have them refilled. A telephone call would follow if the patient failed to visit the pharmacy after the postcard. The study results showed that the average day s late for patients who failed to refill their prescription as expected decreased from 19.15 to 6.6 days after the reminder system was used (P less than 0.005). In addition, the percent of late refills of these patients was 13% less than controls. These findings provide strong evidence that a refill reminder system can be used successfully in a community pharmacy as part of a program to identify non-compliant patients and improve their compliance with chronic medication therapy.