Medication Adherence Campaign Features Superhero

A health plan's community engagement campaign to educate patients to take their medications as directed ties into a strong popular theme to influence patients' prescription adherence rates.

Eight years ago, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield held a community engagement campaign to increase the use of generic drugs across upstate New York. Working with local medical societies and pharmacy groups, the non-profit health plan created a cartoon-like pill bottle mascot, complete with a hat and Groucho glasses, to communicate the message that "brand name drugs are just generics in disguise."

The campaign, which ran for a few years, convinced many in the area to ask their doctors or pharmacists if generic drugs were right for them. Between October 2005 and October 2009, generic prescription fill rates across upstate New York regions increased by 13-17 percentage points—representing community-wide savings of about $835 million.

So this year, when Excellus decided to launch a community engagement campaign to educate patients to take their medications as directed, it decided to go with a similar style. Excellus created a new cartoon character—TAD, for "take as directed"—who is portrayed as a superhero, sporting a cape and a belt.

"We decided to build on the success of our generics campaign by using a similarly stylized pill bottle image to carry our medication adherence message, which is 'If you're not taking your prescriptions as directed, you're taking a chance,'" says Mona Chitre, vice president and chief pharmacy officer of Excellus BlueCross BlueShield.

"Generations of patients have grown up with superhero comic books, TV shows, and movies. In fact, 10 new superhero movies are scheduled for release this year, and 'heroes' was the central theme of this year's Academy Awards, so the timing is perfect."

TAD Campaign Includes Education
Before the campaign launched, Excellus commissioned an online survey in the Rochester area to gauge what people knew about medication adherence. It found that 53% of respondents were not familiar with the term "medication or prescription adherence" and, when asked if they recalled seeing any information about medication in the past two months, only 3% said yes.

In addition to promoting medication adherence by using the TAD mascot, the campaign drives users to a website that explains some barriers, such as side effects, forgetfulness, and cost, and provides helpful tactics to overcome these barriers.

"We hope the campaign helps people to understand the importance of taking their prescriptions as directed by their doctor or pharmacist. Many people just don't realize consequences of stopping a prescription too soon or skipping doses," Chitre says. "Ultimately, our goal is to see medication adherence rates improve over time, which will lead to better health outcomes and lower health care costs for the community."

While the campaign just launched in February, Excellus has already received positive responses from local physicians, pharmacies, county health departments, employer groups, health organizations such as the Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association.

"Across the board, everyone with an interest in improving health recognizes that medication adherence is one of the keys that must be addressed," Chitre says. "These groups are excited about having a common theme they can use to reinforce this message for their patients and employees."

Community Support
In the days following the campaign's launch, more than 50 television news segments featured the campaign across upstate New York, reaching an estimated 600,000 viewers. The launch also generated local radio and newspaper coverage of the issue. Excellus is running billboard, newspaper, and radio ads, with TV spots planned for the future.

Chitre and her team are confident that TAD will ultimately be as successful at educating the community about medication adherence as the "disguised" pill bottle was about generic drugs.

"As a nonprofit health plan, our mission is to improve the health of the upstate New York communities we serve, and we are blessed to have a long history of collaboration among the doctors, hospitals, pharmacists, and other health care organizations of our region," she says.

"Professional communicators say that people need to hear a message at least three to five times before they start to believe it. By having the 'Take as Directed' campaign message reinforced by local health professionals through multiple channels, we hope to build healthier communities across upstate."