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Background: Patients with diabetes often have poor adherence to using medications as prescribed. The reasons why, however, are not well understood. Furthermore, most health care delivery processes do not routinely assess medication adherence or the factors that contribute to poor adherence.

Objective: The objective of the study was to assess the feasibility of an integrated informatics approach to aggregating and displaying clinically relevant data with the potential to identify issues that may interfere with appropriate medication utilization and facilitate patient-provider communication during clinical encounters about strategies to improve medication use.

Methods: We developed a clinical dashboard within an electronic health record (EHR) system that uses data from three sources: the medical record, pharmacy claims, and a patient portal. Next, we implemented the dashboard into three community health centers. Health care providers (n= 15) and patients with diabetes (n= 96) were enrolled in a before-after pilot to test the system’s impact on medication adherence and clinical outcomes. To measure adherence, we calculated the proportion of days covered using pharmacy claims. Demographic, laboratory, and visit data from the EHR were analyzed using pairwise t tests. Perceived barriers to adherence were self-reported by patients. Providers were surveyed about their use and perceptions of the clinical dashboard.

Results: Adherence significantly and meaningfully improved (improvements ranged from 6%-20%) consistently across diabetes as well as cardiovascular drug classes. Clinical outcomes, including HbA1c, blood pressure, lipid …