Predictive tool to prevent overdose in patients treated with prescription opioids

Problem Over the last two decades unintentional opioid related overdose has emerged as a major public health threat in the United States This increasingly common yet preventable cause of morbidity and death among users of prescription opioids is partially due to a substantial expansion in the prescription of opioid analgesics to manage acute and chronic pain conditions Within any given year during the past five of the U S population filled at least one opioid prescription In million opioid prescriptions were written in the U S enough for every American adult to have one bottle of opioid painkillers in their home medicine cabinet In nearly two million Americans aged or older either abused or were dependent on opioid painkillers Opioid poisoning or overdose deaths have more than quadrupled from in to in Total prescription opioid overdose costs in the U S were more than $ billion in This is a significant and rapidly growing problem Solution Venebio Opioid Advisor VOA is a clinical decision support system CDSS based on VG s existing patent pending risk index algorithm that accurately identifies individuals at risk for overdose or serious opioid induced respiratory depression OIRD by utilizing evidence based clinical data gathered from patient electronic medical records EMRs as opioids are being prescribed VOA will be delivered via a stand alone computer application embedded in an EMR system or alternatively located on a remote server accessible through a secure Internet connection VOA will extract a patient s relevant clinical data automatically from the EMR assess the patient s risk for opioid overdose and present the patient s risk score directly to the health care provider enabling evidence based guidance and education that is personalized to the individual patientandapos s specific risk factor profile The ability to identify individuals at elevated risk of experiencing prescription opioid related toxicity or opioid overdose will provide awareness of the individual risk level to both the health care provider and the patient Methods The overarching objective of our proposed Phase II research is first to refine and validate the clinical content used to create the existing Venebio Opioid Advisor algorithm then to incorporate this refined information along with the additional evidence based guidance and educational content into a clinical decision support system and finally to validate this CDSS during a prospective pilot study of VOA in the real world clinical pain management setting Over the last two decades unintentional prescription opioid related overdose has emerged as a major public health threat in the United States Our innovative Venebio Opioid Adviser VOA technology has the potential to become an essential clinical decision support system to reduce opioid related overdose events thereby significantly decreasing associated morbidity mortality and overall healthcare economic burden