We Need Your Help to Combat the Opioid Epidemic
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7.16.2019 By Bill Cioffi, CIO, Healdsburg District Hospital |
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Andy Smith, President, Impact Advisors |
The CHIME Opioid Task Force launched an educational webinar series last year to share health IT-based practices that have shown progress at curbing the opioid crisis. The webinars, which are free and open to the public, have been well received and number among some of CHIME’s best attended online educational events. This year the task force wants to expand our offerings, and as the co-chairs of the educational subcommittee, we are asking our Foundation partners to help.
Many CHIME Foundation members are working with their provider clients to develop, roll out and sustain programs that address the opioid epidemic. There are many facets to the opioid problem, and many strategies to solve it. For instance, previous webinars have shown how healthcare systems used their IT resources to first benchmark opioid prescribing patterns, identify over–prescribers in their organizations and then collaborate with clinicians to reduce unnecessary prescribing. This has led to fewer patients exposed to opioids and narrowed the pipeline of prescription drugs that might be misused. Other webinars have explored ways to flag patients who are addicted or at risk of addiction and then support them.
The Opioid Task Force is looking for examples of partnerships between Foundation firms and healthcare organizations that have real-world results of successfully tackling the opioid epidemic. These examples can touch on any part of the challenge, from prevention to treatment to long-term care. The content should be tailored for CIOs and CMIOs and should highlight IT’s role in creating solutions. Our goal is to conduct a webinar monthly and build a resource for the healthcare community.
We will take advantage of CHIME’s expertise and existing resources to hold the webinar series. The proposal submission criteria are similar to CHIME’s College LIVE webinars; instructions are available here. For selecting proposals, we will apply the CHIME Fall CIO Forum’s track sessions guidelines, which strongly recommend including a CHIME member as a presenter. If you are partnering with a provider on an opioid project but not sure they are a CHIME member, ask the CHIME team to help you find out. Once a proposal is accepted, the CHIME team will work with presenters on scheduling, formatting and other logistics.
The Opioid Task Force welcomes the chance to share your success stories. If you have any questions, please email [email protected].