“Don’t forget to take your medicine!” Improving the use of medicine by elderly patients in the region of Madrid

Performance indicators

The programme is being coordinated by the Directorate General of Economic Management and Provision of Health and Pharmaceutical Products of the Health Agency of the Region of Madrid. This unit conducts regular evaluations of the programme, which are disseminated to 7 sub-ordinate administrative units, which again pass the information onto the health professionials working in primary care.

In the first four years after the start of the programme, more than 100,000 patients benefitted from the programme, with more than 1000 pharmacies participating (35% of all pharmacies in the region of Madrid).

The programme has brought very positive results for the improvement of health of the patients.  By the end of the second year of the programme, the proportion of patients aged over 74 who were at a high risk of adverse effects  from their medication (medication which fulfills the so-called Beers criteria) fell from 16.3% in 2006 to 14.4% in 2008.

As far as the overall impact of the programme is concerned, a survey conducted with the 127,206 patients engaged in the programme  in June 2011 (with an average response rate of 64%) indicated that:

• 91.6% of the respondents knew how they were supposed to take their prescribed medications
• 92.4% knew the prescribed dosage
• 95.37% exhibited good compliance (indicated by the Morisky test).