Julie Lauffenburger, PharmD '10 is first author on the paper discussing how heart attack survivors paint a complex picture of adhering to medicine. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studied how likely patients from each race and gender group are to fill their prescriptions.
The work, led by Gang Fang at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, suggest that while national initiatives have been effective in encouraging clinicians to prescribe preventive medications for heart-attack patients at the time of discharge, more needs to be done to help patients stay on those medications.
According to Lauffenbruger, "Some adherence interventions in the past have focused on a blanket approach to emphasizing adherence even though patient demographic subgroups may have different needs and perceptions about medication use. These results suggest that more targeted interventions need to be considered, especially for adherence after heart attacks."
Julie Lauffenburger is an alumnae of the School of Pharmacy, class of 2010 and presently a graduate student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
