CHIME Makes Opioid Task Force’s Inaugural Webinar Free, Open to Public

ANN ARBOR, MI, April 20, 2018 – The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) will kick off an educational initiative to stem the tide on the nation’s opioid epidemic with a webinar at noon April 25 that is free and open to the public. The webinar marks a milestone for the CHIME Opioid Task Force, which was launched in January to harness the knowledge and resources of CHIME and its members to combat a disease that claims 115 lives a day.

John Kravitz, CIO at Geisinger headquartered in Danville, Pa., and a member of the CHIME Board of Trustees and the CHIME Public Policy Steering Committee, will discuss Geisinger’s innovative use of healthcare IT to change providers’ opioid prescribing patterns in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania had the fourth highest opioid-related death rate in the U.S. in 2016, and many of the counties with the highest death rates were served by Geisinger. Geisinger, recognized as an innovator in the use of electronic health records and care delivery models, launched a program that reduced monthly opioid prescription rates by nearly 50 percent. Kravitz provided an overview of the program in testimony before a House subcommittee on April 12.

He will be joined by Richard Taylor, M.D., Geisinger’s chief medical information officer, and Michael Evans, vice president of enterprise pharmacy and chief pharmacy officer. Jim Turnbull, CIO at University of Utah Health in Salt Lake City and co-chair of the CHIME Opioid Task Force, will introduce them.

“Part of our mission as a task force is to share healthcare IT’s best practices for preventing opioid addiction, identifying those at risk of addiction and helping treat victims who become addicted to opioids,” Turnbull said. “We know that to be most effective, we need to involve the entire healthcare community, which is why we are making this and future webinars free and open to the public.”

The CHIME Opioid Task Force was formed after the opioid overdose death of the son of CHIME member Ed Kopetsky, CIO at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif. Kopetsky is also co-chair of the task force. “For far too long, opioid addiction has been a silent disease in this country,” Kopetsky said. “CHIME and the Opioid Task Force are determined to shed light on this epidemic and look for solutions using our members’ expertise as healthcare IT leaders. We appreciate John’s generous offer to share the promising work done at Geisinger.”

Kravitz said the initiatives rolled out by Geisinger are broadly generalizable to healthcare systems across the U.S. To succeed, though, organizations will need support from their physician leadership and a commitment to eliminating unnecessary opioid prescribing. “Information technology is a powerful tool, but its effectiveness is limited without buy-in from clinicians and administrators,” Kravitz said. “We encourage others to work closely with their providers and executive teams as they apply these strategies in their organizations.” 

Non-CHIME members can register for the webinar here. CHIME members can register here. To learn more about the CHIME Opioid Task Force, go here.

About CHIME

The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers (CIOs), chief medical information officers (CMIOs), chief nursing information officers (CNIOs) and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 2,600 members in 51 countries and over 150 healthcare IT business partners and professional services firms, CHIME provides a highly interactive, trusted environment enabling senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate; exchange best practices; address professional development needs; and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and healthcare in the communities they serve. For more information, please visit chimecentral.org.

Contact
Candace Stuart
Director of Communications and Public Relations, CHIME
734.665.0000
[email protected]