PAIN POINT
“How can we do more to fight the opioid crisis?”
SOLUTION
Better collaboration and information, through Collective Medical.
Collaboration is an effective tool for fighting the opioid crisis. That’s the message from Collective Medical, a Solvent Networks endorsed partner that offers a collaborative information technology tool that can help reduce opiate prescriptions in emergency departments.
The platform, known as EDie, draws information from a nationwide network of healthcare facilities, providers, insurers and related organizations that use EDie to collect and share patient-specific data to improve care coordination.
That allows the system to flag high-risk, frequent-utilization patients who travel from hospital to hospital, even from state to state, in search of narcotics.
Opioid-related drug overdoses accounts for more than 100 deaths per day, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and people who have had an opioid disorder or have misused prescription drugs number in the millions.
In a recent Thought Partner Webinar, Lyle Mioduszewski, Collective Medical’s clinical lead for emergency medical, said that 5 percent of patients account for up to 35 percent of emergency department encounters, and much of the super-high utilization is driven by drug use. These often-avoidable readmissions represent $12 billion a year in unnecessary costs.
EDie can help by giving staff information about complications and risk factors that are associated with opioid-seeking patients, such as frequency of ED visits, pain contracts, disease demographics and security incidents. It automatically delivers a real-time, high-level dashboard report that can be scanned in 60 to 90 seconds.
“People in the emergency department don’t have time to read a lengthy report, because they’ve only got a few minutes to make a decision about care,” Mioduszewski said. Armed with that information, staff can look for alternatives to manage pain. EDie also allows staff to proactively search for a patient’s history by name.
Visit the Solvent Networks online newsroom to access all Thought Partner archived webinars and other resources.
We invite your comments, questions and suggestions. The more we know about your needs and priorities, the better we can serve you and SCHA. So do you have a Pain Point? Let us solve it! Let us know what pains you!