Technological Solutions to the Opioid Epidemic

Danny Sanchez, vice president and general manager, Population Health Services for Omnicell, explains how technology can be used to monitor patients on opioids and intervene before an overdose. This video was filmed at the ASHP (American Society of Health-System Pharmacists) Midyear Clinical Meeting & Exhibition in Las Vegas.

Danny Sanchez: So, the opioid epidemic is huge, right, and people are looking at those different ways of creating those interventions. What we can do at Omnicell PHS, we can actually look at our retail consumers and determine which patients are actually on an opioid, and we can actually coprescribe naxolone, which is actually recommended by the FDA whenever an opioid is prescribed. Naxolone can save a patients’ life if they’re having an overdose. So, we find these patients, we create the intervention through our task-management platform to prescribe them the naxolone medication, and it’s a win-win for both sides. One: pharmacists want to get an extra refill for the patient, but more importantly to take care of their patient, and preventing an overdose is huge, and from the insurer-payer side, that’s a very expensive event. So, being able to intervene, and create that intervention is huge.