Critical Need for Adherence

According to the National Council on Patient Information and Education (NCPIE), approximately 50% of patients are not taking their medications as prescribed. Lack of medication adherence leads to unnecessary disease progression, disease complications, reduced functional abilities, a lower quality of life, and even death. But one of the most serious results of poor medication adherence is the emergence of drug resistant strains in diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

The ramifications of poor prescription medication adherence affects virtually every aspect of the health care system with a cost of approximately $177 billion annually to the U.S. economy. Besides an estimated $47 billion each year for drug-related hospitalizations, not taking medications as prescribed has been associated with as many as 40% of admissions to nursing homes and with an additional $2,000 a year per patient in medical costs for visits to physicians' offices.

One serious example is Tuberculosis (TB): Nearly 2 billion persons - about one third of the world's population - are infected by TB. In 2008 an estimated 9 million people will develop TB and 2 million people will die from this contagious disease. TB is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria that are spread in airborne droplets when people with active TB sneeze or cough. TB can be cured by taking several strong antibiotics daily for at least six months, but studies show that nearly half of patients fail to follow their medications regimen due to unpleasant side-effects, complex treatment regimens and a belief that they can stop treatment when they start to feel better. Poor medication adherence causes people to remain infectious longer, increasing the threat to public health, but also contributes to the emergence of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). MDR-TB takes longer to treat with medications that have more side-effects are much more expensive.

Xhale’s breath-based medication adherence system is the only technology on the market today that can verify that a patient took the right medication and the right dose at the right time.