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Quality improvement
Observational study
Failure to fill a first prescription of a new medication is common in primary care settings
  1. Catherine S Hwang1,2,
  2. G Caleb Alexander1,3,4
  1. 1Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA;
  2. 2Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA;
  3. 3Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA;
  4. 4Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
  1. Correspondence to: Dr G Caleb Alexander, Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe Street, W6035 Baltimore, MD 21205, USA; galexan9{at}jhu.edu

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebmed-2014-110026

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    Commentary on: Tamblyn R, Eguale T, Huang A, et al. The incidence and determinants of primary non-adherence with prescribed medication in primary care: a cohort study. Ann Intern Med 2014;160:441–50.

    Context

    Poor medication adherence is common and has been a long-standing concern of providers, payers and policy-makers alike. The incidence and prevalence of primary non-adherence, or the failure to fill a first prescription of a new medication, is increasingly quantifiable with advances in health information technology. Prior work suggests that as many as one-third of new prescriptions may not be filled, although rates of primary non-adherence vary based on a number of factors, including study populations and research designs, as well as medication class, route of administration and formulary status.1–3 Tamblyn and colleagues quantify the …

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    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.