Doctors Warn That Using Domestic Spoons To Give Children Medicine Increases Overdose Risk
Parents are being urged not to use domestic spoons to give children medicine after a study found significant differences in capacity. A parent using one of the biggest domestic teaspoons would be giving their child 192 per cent more medicine than a parent using the smallest teaspoon and the difference was 100 per cent for the tablespoons...

Younger Breast Cancer Patients Most Likely To Discontinue Treatment, Study Finds
About half of breast cancer patients do not take their medication for the recommended period of time, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, USA Today reports (Szabo, USA Today, 6/29)...

Getting Patients To Take Their Asthma Meds
Armed with the right information, physicians can play a stronger role in ensuring asthma patients don't waver in taking drugs proven to prevent asthma attacks, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit...

Programs Try Cash Incentives To Get Forgetful Patients To Take Meds
The New York Times reports on a new approach to getting patients to take their medications consistently: financial incentives. "One-third to one-half of all patients do not take medication as prescribed, and up to one-quarter never fill prescriptions at all, experts say. Such lapses fuel more than $100 billion dollars in health costs annually because those patients often get sicker...

Health Care Quality Issues: The Disconnect Between Patients And Experts
The Kansas City Star: Improving "health literacy" could help improve patient outcomes and quality. This literacy is "the limited ability to understand the technical jargon, the orders, the prescriptions and the forms coming from doctors, nurses, pharmacists and insurance companies...

How Personalised Outreach Can Boost Adherence
Kate Reid, general manager of Atlantis Healthcare UK, outlines the benefits of an individualised approach to non-compliance. "Current research suggests that 50 per cent of patients are non-adherent," says Reid. "More worrisome is the fact that 60 to 70 percent of these patients are deliberately non-adherent...

Consumers Roundup: More Patients Choose High-Deductible Plans; Many Neglect Doctors' Medication Directions
A number of news outlets explores consumer health issues. The (Milwaukee) Business Journal: "The number of Americans enrolled in high-deductible health plans has risen to more than 10 million but still represents a small portion of the insurance market, according to a report from insurance group America's Health Insurance Plans...

Irregular Medication Use Puts Seniors At Risk For Falling
Older adults increase their chances of falling by not taking their medications as directed, according to an article in the latest edition of the Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological and Medical Sciences (Volume 65A, Number 5)...

Survey Reveals Reasons For Quitting Bladder Medication
Nine out of ten patients who discontinued their overactive bladder (OAB) medication said it was because it didn't work as expected or they couldn't tolerate it, according to research in the May issue of the urology journal BJUI...

Experts Try To Fix Problem Of Millions Who Don't Adhere To Prescriptions
The Boston Globe: "It is a common conundrum in doctor's offices, clinics, and hospitals across the nation: patients who do not take their medication as directed. It's true for people with high cholesterol, low calcium, diabetes, and asthma. It's even true for patients with the AIDS virus and those who have received life-saving replacement organs...

RealMed To Ease Client Transition To 5010 And ICD-10 Compliance
As medical professionals are keenly aware, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has established timelines for implementation of 5010 Standards by January 1, 2012. These standards cover all electronic transactions including eligibility, claims, claim status, and remittance...

Vitality Selects M2M Module For GlowCap Cellular Connectivity Enabling Medication Adherence Programs
Telit Wireless Solutions, Inc., the U.S.-based mobile technology arm of Telit Communications (AIM: TCM), announced that its GE864-QUAD M2M module was selected by Vitality, Inc. as the cellular connectivity module in the company's intelligent pill bottle caps, called GlowCaps. Vitality GlowCaps provide individualized feedback programs that help people improve prescription adherence...

PRISYM ID's Medica Greatly Simplifies FDA And MHRA Compliance
PRISYM ID Limited announced the launch of a new product that allows life science companies to review, validate and record their product labels quickly and efficiently while allowing greater collaboration across the process...

Biocompatible Pill Designed To Signal That It Has Been Swallowed
Call them tattletale pills. Seeking a way to confirm that patients have taken their medication, University of Florida engineering researchers have added a tiny microchip and digestible antenna to a standard pill capsule...

Why We Forget To Take Our Medicine, And What We Can Do About It
For many people, remembering to take a daily medication can be the difference between life and death. Yet, people forget all the time. Now a landmark study from North Carolina State University has found that changes in daily behavior have a significant effect on whether we remember to take our medication - and that these changes influence older and younger adults differently...