Much like the COVID-19 pandemic is taxing the healthcare system today, the opioid epidemic has been challenging the healthcare industry for the last decade with more than 130 people overdosing daily due to misuse of these drugs. Although you cannot completely resolve it, there are tools and technologies you can put in place that enable the right people, including the addicted, to monitor and manage it proactively for better outcomes.

The Opioid Insights Dashboard (OD Insights) is an example of one of these tools that can support patients, healthcare providers, policy makers, and others. It provides real-time, data-driven, predictive insights that help patients now and provides the information needed to improve healthcare policies and protocols going forward.

Who Can Use the Dashboard App?

There are a lot of people involved in the opioid epidemic, and all can benefit from using OD Insights or having access to the insights derived from the application. For example:

  • Patients and patient supporters, such as friends and family, spiritual leaders, advisors, and probation officers use the OD Insights mobile app as a virtual medical assistance tool.

  • Healthcare professionals and institutions, such as physicians, hospitals, clinics, support groups, inpatient care providers, and community groups, can see which inventions work, when they’re most helpful, and make reliable predictions.

  • Counselors, including life coaches and guardian coaches, can provide coaching and assistance to patients in real-time.

  • Policy makers, legislators, and government regulators who are committed to finding ways to control and eradicate the opioid crisis as well as advocates and other influencers including activists, case managers, policy influencers, and others use the insights derived from the application.

How the Dashboard Works

Patients use a mobile app to track their habits and triggers, and work with doctors, counselors, and other patient supporters to help them through this difficult period. The app enables real-time monitoring, coaching, and intervention by healthcare professionals, along with AI-driven prompts.

As patients and patient supporters use the OD Insights application, anonymized data is collected and analyzed in the dashboard application. Additional information is collected from hospitals, clinics, parole officers, social workers, and other sources. Together, all this data is analyzed to identify trends in risk factors and addiction preventative techniques to improve patient treatments and reduce addiction risks.

The same insights are pushed to physicians, medical facilities, regulators, and other decision-makers, providing a cohesive view of the problem and recommendations that can help improve healthcare policies or guidance.

Building a Strong Analytical Framework

The opioid crisis will not resolve itself on its own. It is critical to bring together all the people involved and affected – from the patient to the policy makers – providing them with the tools and information they need to manage the epidemic.

A strong analytics framework is key to combating this crisis, and the OD Insights Dashboard aligns with the HHS 5-Point Strategy to ensure all critical aspects of opioid addiction management are addressed, including:

  1. Better addiction prevention, treatment, and recovery services.

  2. Better data to inform real-time public health response.

  3. Better pain management.

  4. Better targeting of overdose-reversing drugs.

  5. Better research to advance our understanding.

Many factors contribute to opioid addiction. By pulling a wide dataset from multiple sources into a central location, we can analyze the data, predict trends, and provide insights that help the support community and make real the HHS 5-Point Plan.

A Framework for Other Epidemics

The OD Insights Dashboard is designed to support the opioid epidemic by supporting patients as well as providing insights to healthcare providers, regulators, and other parties who want to resolve this epidemic.

But it is also an example of how this kind of technology can help manage and support other healthcare crises, including COVID-19. A dashboard, like OD Insights, can provide emergency response and outreach to give those affected a tool for self-reporting symptoms.

Also, through the analysis of data across the country – and even the world, it can provide situational awareness to healthcare providers and policy makers as they work to manage and fight the pandemic.

The combination of the right people with the right tools and technology can help us through some of the biggest challenges to our country’s health.

Download this white paper to read more about this predictive analytics tool to support healthcare epidemics, or contact us to learn more.