CVS Caremark Launches the Behavior Change Research Partnership to Develop Ways to Encourage Adherent, Healthy Behaviors While Saving Patients Money

WOONSOCKET, R.I., March 2 /PRNewswire/ -- As part of its efforts to improve pharmacy health care for  American consumers, CVS Caremark (NYSE: CVS) today announced it is expanding its research efforts to include the creation of a Behavior Change Research Partnership. The partnership will help health care providers better understand why people choose to follow – or ignore – their prescribed medication regimen, and look for ways to encourage those patients to make effective health care decisions.

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CVS Caremark is working with academic leaders from Carnegie Mellon University, Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business and the University of Pennsylvania's Medical School and Wharton School of Business in the Behavior Change Research Partnership.  These research partners will team with CVS Caremark to develop insights into consumer actions around health challenges by studying the issues through the lens of behavioral economics and social marketing.

For example, patient non-adherence to essential chronic medications is widely recognized as a leading barrier to improving public health and a cause of increasing medical costs. The Partnership will study reasons why people who go to the doctor often choose to not fill their initial prescriptions or prematurely stop taking those medications during treatment and recovery.

The partnership will seek to better understand why consumers may choose to buy more expensive brand medications when they have access to generic medications that may provide identical or similar health outcomes.  

"This partnership represents another step in our effort to learn more about how we can help patients understand that effective pharmacy care can impact overall medical costs," said Dr. Troyen A. Brennan, MD, MPH, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of CVS Caremark. "While we know there are many reasons people stop taking their medicine – cost, forgetfulness, side effects and others -- this research will help us counsel consumers to make the right decision regarding their health," Brennan said.

The Behavior Change Research Partnership will be led by George Lowenstein of Carnegie Mellon; Punam Anand Keller of Dartmouth University, Tuck School of Business; and Kevin Volpp of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School and The Wharton School of Business.

This latest research initiative complements CVS Caremark's previously announced three-year collaboration with researchers from Harvard and Brigham and Women's Hospital to study pharmacy claims data to better understand patient behavior around medication adherence.

Non-adherence to essential chronic medications has been widely recognized as a major public health problem in studies published in medical journals. Past studies show one-quarter of people receiving prescriptions never fill their first prescription, and patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes and coronary artery disease adhere to their ongoing medication regimen about half of the time. Non-adherence to essential medications is a frequent cause of preventable hospitalizations and patient illness, with costs to the U.S. health care system estimated at about $300 billion annually.    

Behavioral economics and social marketing are growing bodies of science that look at how environment and other factors prompt personal decisions.  In this case, the purpose of this research will be to discover ways to make it easier for consumers to make choices that are beneficial to their health. Among the matters to be studied by the partnership are:

• Providing Appropriate Incentives: Research how appropriate financial incentives – in the form of lower copays and immediate up-front rewards – motivate consumer decisions to help improve health care behavior.
• Developing education tools: Determine how education materials and programs targeting consumers can be applied to persuade positive behavior that will affect meaningful change for patients.
• Tailoring Communications: Studying how specific messages resonate with individuals to promote improved health outcomes, adherence and personal care.

About CVS Caremark

CVS Caremark is the largest pharmacy health care provider in the United States. Through our integrated offerings across the entire spectrum of pharmacy care, we are uniquely positioned to provide greater access, to engage plan members in behaviors that improve their health, and to lower overall health care costs for health plans, plan sponsors and their members. CVS Caremark is a market leader in mail order pharmacy, retail pharmacy, specialty pharmacy, and retail clinics, and is a leading provider of Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plans. As one of the country's largest pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs), we provide access to a network of more than 64,000 pharmacies, including approximately 7,000 CVS/pharmacy® stores that provide unparalleled service and capabilities. Our clinical expertise includes one of the industry's most comprehensive disease management programs. General information about CVS Caremark is available through the Company's Web site at http://info.cvscaremark.com.

SOURCE CVS Caremark