Improvement of medication adherence in osteoporosis through telemedicine combined with email: a patient-reported experience and outcome measure-based prospective study.

OBJECTIVES

To evaluate whether adherence to oral bisphosphonate in patients with osteoporosis may be improved by teleconsultation (TC) with or without combined use of email to contact the bone specialist on-demand (enhanced TC).

METHODS

103 naïve patients with osteoporosis were prescribed branded alendronate (70 mg weekly) and randomised to three service modalities (presence, TC and enhanced TC), and evaluated for medication adherence after 12 months of follow-up. Patients allocated to the enhanced TC were provided with the opportunity to contact the bone specialists by email without any restriction. Patient-reported outcome(PROMs) and experience measures (PREMs) were evaluated with respect to the service modality.

RESULTS

Of 89 patients who were persistent to therapy, 66% displayed optimal medication adherence, with odds being 4.5 higher in patients receiving enhanced TC versus those receiving the other services. TC service modality was considered in general to be worse in quality than in presence visits, whereas the combination with email use as in enhanced TC was sufficient to compensate for the perceived decrease in quality of care. Enhanced TC did not have any impact on the perception of quality of life as assessed by PROMs.

DISCUSSION: In patients with osteoporosis, TC did not provide any advantage over traditional in presence visits in terms of improvement of adherence to therapy. However, when TC was combined with email to contact the bone specialist on demand, there was a significant improvement in adherence to the prescribed drug.

CONCLUSIONS

Patients with osteoporosis need to be supported after drug prescription to guarantee optimal medication therapy.