Essential Medications for Native Americans

Medications are a significant treatment modality in Western medicine. Medication adherence is essential to positive health care outcomes. Non-adherence to medications contributes to poor health care outcomes and leads to disease progression. Native Americans have the poorest medication adherence rates among all of the population groups. Health disparities in health care exist despite the access to basic health care and medications provided to Native Americans through the Indian Health Service. Many health care institutions as a whole and health care providers contribute to health care disparities due to their lack of knowledge about the “history behind the health history” of Native American patients. At a Midwest health care facility, many Native American patients were being discharged without direction for obtaining their medications. A process was developed at a Midwest health care facility to provide Native American patients who list the Indian Health Service (IHS) as their primary pay source, a 3 to 5-day supply of essential medications upon discharge at no cost. Since implementation on September 2020, ninety-nine Native American patients have been discharged from the hospital with enough medication until they are able to fill the prescriptions at the IHS. This scholarly project helped to eliminate one of the barriers to medication adherence and promote positive health care outcomes for Native American patients