Contact with pharmacist can improve adherence to new anticoagulant, study finds

The proportion of patients with a prescription for dabigatran who take their tablets as instructed varies widely and can be improved by more appropriate selection of patients and monitoring by a pharmacist, a study reported in JAMA has found.1 US researchers questioned whether patients’ adherence to target-specific oral anticoagulants, including dabigatran, could be improved. They noted that a previous study had reported that suboptimal adherence to dabigatran was associated with increased risk of stroke and death. Unlike warfarin, this new generation of …