Effectiveness of Technology-Assisted Medication

Hallmark Paper
Student's Name
College/University
Course
Professor's Name
Due Date
Final Paper
For most adults, it is a challenge to manage day-to-day realities while suffering from chronic illnesses. Failure to strictly follow the physician's prescribed dosage may cause serious health harm, even for aging persons with cognitive impairment (Smaje et al., 2018). Most care facilities offer care services in a complex environment with minimal support, creating barriers related to expensive healthcare support. In this context, using care coordination paradigms and technological tools to support medication adherence of older individuals constitutes a feasible approach to augment their health outcomes. However, standard medication is regarded as the primary treatment of most chronic illnesses, but adhering to these prescriptions remains a challenge (Walsh et al., 2019). For example, dosage schedules are explicitly complex since they require multiple frequencies and prescriptions.
According to Prakash et al. (2021), the intervention that embraced smart pillboxes and cellphone remainders explicitly enhanced medication adherence among older adults suffering from chronic illnesses. Research also indicates that a medication adherence program incorporating a mobile application enhances medication compliance among adults with hypertension (Otegbulu, 2022). Therefore, these studies validate that using technology-based assistance medication can improve chronic conditions in older adults (Prakash et al., 2021; Otegbulu, 2022). Medication non-adherence is a primary concern for older adults dealing with chronic illnesses. This paper will discuss evidence-based findings that using technology-based medication assistance in treating chronic disease among older adults is better than using standard medication methods.
Project Proposal Topic
The topic of this project proposal relates to the effectiveness of technology-assisted medication in supporting medication adherence in older adults with chronic illnesses. Medication adherence, or the degree to which a person follows their prescribed medication regimen, constitutes a complex healthcare issue influenced by several factors (Jang et al., 2021). In this vein, technology-assisted medication is the proposed solution to enhance medical adherence among older adults with chronic illnesses. Such interventions, according to Jang et al. (2021), use innovations such as mobile applications and small pillboxes. Jang et al. (2021) add that these technologies have advantages such as improved medication adherence, real-time monitoring, reduced healthcare costs, and personalized reminders.
Capstone Proposal
The following PICOT question guides the project: Is there relevant evidence that utilizing technology-assisted medication adherence intervention in older adults with chronic health conditions contributes to medication adherence compared to standard medication alone for a minimum period of 9 months? The topic of this project proposal is the effectiveness of technology-assisted medication in fostering medication compliance in older adults struggling with chronic illnesses. While standard medication is vital in treating chronic illnesses, technology-assisted medication is better than the latter due to personalized reminders, increased convenience, real-time monitoring, minimal medical errors, and improved patient engagement.
Omboni and Tenti (2019) suggest that technology-assisted medication enhances convenience and real-time medication adherence monitoring by streamlining the patient's medication system. The researchers further asserted that offering patients streamlined access to medicines through a mobile application that offers reminders, real-time tracking, and refill requests is more convenient compared to traditional prescription methods. In this vein, older patients can use their mobile phones to manage their dosages without visiting pharmacies. Accordingly, smart pillboxes remind patients to take their medicines at the right time and track their adherence. Some pillboxes dispense medications automatically, allowing the patient to sort and organize their dosages. Lastly, patients also benefit from online refill requests, where they refill their requests online without calling any person or pharmacy (Omboni & Tenti, 2019).
Standard medication strategies have various shortcomings in administering care to older patients with chronic illnesses. For instance, recent research suggested that standard medication procedures are prone to errors like incorrect dosages and drug interactions, especially for older adults, because of the complexity of medical regimens (Dat et al., 2023). The researchers also add that polypharmacy is common in these cases of patients and can cause medical-related complications like noncompliance to prescriptions, drug reactions, and increased health costs. Therefore, the author claims that these potential shortcomings need to be addressed by adopting new strategies for medication administration to older patients with chronic illnesses (Dat et al., 2023). In this case, technology-assisted medication is a valid model to eliminate such errors.
Background
Medication noncompliance for older patients with chronic illnesses is linked to increased chances of death, significant financial burden, and hospitalization. Also, poor medication adherence is the primary predictor of increased mortality rates in patients with chronic complications like diabetes and heart failure. According to Walsh et al. (2019), noncompliance to physician prescription among older adults is a well-established problem, with research on elderly patients above 60 years suggesting that less than 50% of these patients were adherent to medication (Walsh et al., 2019). In this context, health education and mobilizing family support can effectively enhance prescription compliance for older patients.
The lack of enough healthcare providers and medical facilities in rural areas is a growing concern because of the need for patient-practitioner interactions to address medication non-adherence. These issues are prevalently challenging to aging patients (>60 years) because of their limited movement, distance restraints, and time, which limit their capacity to take medicine at rightful times. It is anticipated that older adults are prone to chronic illnesses and require multiple dosages daily (polypharmacy), unlike younger patients, necessitating the demand for quick and regular medical access. Also, due to increased chances of cognitive impairments in older individuals, medical administration becomes a problem (Chudiak et al., 2018). Therefore, new technologies such as technology-assisted medication (e.g., tele-pharmacy) could address barriers to medical administration and improve accessibility.
Tele-pharmacy is a term used to describe information communication technology to avail pharmacy practice components such as clinical support equipment, patient counselling, controlling dispensing prescriptions, remote education, and drug therapies' reconciliation. Such technology is a new strategy that can replace closed rural pharmacies as it first succeeded in 2000 at a North Dakota facility in America. The uptake for technology-assisted medication management has grown exponentially over the years due to support from recognized organizations like the American Association of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) (Pathak et al., 2020). In this vein, the literature review should consider patients' experiences using technology-assisted medication models and uncover the benefits and challenges.
Literature Review
Numerous attempts have been coined over the years to determine the primary influencers of adherence. Most of these attempts entailed single-dimension-patient-related features while ignoring the WHO framework (WHO, 2022). Research indicates that medication adherence constitutes a significant problem in managing senior patients, with the challenge being increased under-represented in existing research (Smaje et al., 2018). In order to ascertain adherence facilitators, it is vital to consider more than single domains and incorporate interactive factors in an explicitly multi-dimensional approach. For example, research can be conducted in primary care settings to identify adherence venues (Smaje et al., 2018). Thus, the primary aim is to incorporate the WHO framework and uncover adherence factors connected to chronic illnesses. People with chronic illnesses need quality medical care to minimize severity, prevent disabilities, and improve outcomes.
Methods of Searching
A systematic literature review was conducted to identify, choose, evaluate, and synthesize study evidence to organize existing knowledge about the technology-assisted medication system and improve adherence to medication in chronically ill older adults. The Joanna Briggs Institute Guidelines were incorporated to support the PICOT question's authenticity. Our review was reported with Briggs Institute and PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis). The present research was conducted to uncover interventions necessary to improve medication prescribed to older adults with chronic illnesses.
Review of the Literature
The literature review examined self-management as a dynamic activity involving distal outcomes, context, and proximal outcomes. This study was guided by the individual and family self-management theory. Regarding context, scholars like Leonard and Myint (2022) claim that condition-specific factors and the complexity of the self-management plan influence the patient's ability to comply with prescriptions. Chronic factors like dementia and depression affect the cognitive system and self-management efforts with medication. Sensory and physical impairments can influence resistance to medication adherence (Leonard & Myint, 2022)
Physical, social, and environmental components may influence self-management and medical adherence. Patients living with helpful family members may benefit from being reminded to take their pills, unlike those with non-cooperative members. Therefore, individual factors like age and race may influence self-management. According to a study by Viswanathan and Lambert (2019), African Americans may not opt well into self-management, which makes it hard for chronically ill older patients to adhere to their medication. These people also have predetermined mistrust of healthcare providers and the pharmaceutical sector. Therefore, due to poor communication with these groups, they may not adopt medical adherence tenets.
Also, self-management involves interacting with processes guided by social facilitation, self-regulation abilities, beliefs, and other knowledge-specific factors. Therefore, variations in the severity of these chronic illnesses exist based on self-management techniques. Traditionally, people used self-regulation and commitment tools like schedules and calendars to remind older patients of medical adherence (Harris et al., 2022). Tools like machines that dispense medication, automated telephone calls, med planners, and reminder devices could lessen this dilemma of medical adherence to chronically ill older patients.
Social support and influence, such as coordination and facilitation of medical adherence through self-management, have been effective previously. For instance, ageing individuals with chronic illnesses such as diabetes adhered to nurse care coordination measures involving assessment, developing a plan for care, monitoring, and revisions. These interventions were effective using the face-to-face approach, but with time they were questioned based on the cost of care of interest. Though the programs efficiently enhanced medication adherence for older adults, studies claim they generated mixed results (Hanlon et al., 2017). They harmed distal ...