Medication Adherence Strategies for Oral Chemotherapies

Julianne Orr, PharmD, from the Indiana University Health Simon Cancer Center, talks about the pharmacist's role in ensuring patients are adherent to their oral chemotherapy regimens.

Transcript

"At IU Health, we speak to patients at initial education, so before they start the medication, and then we follow up with every cycle. So depending on the oral agent they're on, that may be 3 weeks or it may be 6 weeks, it depends on the patient. And our role in that is making sure we're assessing adherence, so answering any questions that they may have, reiterating how they should take the drug (with or without food), and then assessing obviously any medication changes, interactions, and adverse events. We do that on a cycle basis right now, so that is a pharmacist speaking to those patients."