It struck me that the challenge area we are dealing with is about people not taking their meds in the way that the doctor intented them to. It is evident that this is the result of not only the patient being at fault since everything around the patient is not fully functioning in most of the cases.
Based on this insight, I have come to the conclusion that we are better off using the term 'medication adherence' rather than 'patient compliance' -- the latter implies disobedient patients and leads us to focus the energy on more and better information to patients only. We might be barking up the wrong tree...
Re:
fake watches
Patient Compliance: wrong name
I agree patient compliance is poor description of the challenge. It doesn't cover the whole problem (which we summarise as compliance + persistence = adherence). It also implies that it is the patients fault when the fault is actually ours as pharma marketeers.
If we continue to only invest in traditional marketing approaches to "customers" (HCPs/ payors) and view the patient as an inert "consumer" of medication we don't deserve to get well behaving patients.
Only by understanding that the patient is infact the most important stakeholder will we begin to see a change in the way patients behave.
John Perkins
Managing Partner
Rapp Collins Consumer Health