Louisville, KY, June 21, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Appriss Health, provider of the most comprehensive platform for substance use disorder in the U.S., today announced that its co-developed “CONNECT Empowering Opioid Exchange” project won a 2017 FedHealthIT Innovation Award with its partner Federal Health Architecture (FHA).
The “CONNECT Empowering Opioid Exchange” project was envisioned as part of Appriss Health’s and FHA’s ongoing work to address the prescription drug and opioid epidemic. The Department of Defense (DoD) asked Appriss Health’s partner, FHA, to envision a solution to aggregate prescription drug information from multiple states and deliver it in a clinician’s workflow at the point-of-care. Appriss Health worked with FHA together on an approach leveraging state prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs), PMP InterConnect and PMP Gateway to integrate with CONNECT to enable DoD to identify use, misuse and abuse of opioids by active duty soldiers. This information enables early identification, prevention and management of substance use disorder (SUD) within existing federal workflow and across state lines, where approved.
This project builds upon CONNECT, FHA’s security gateway that implements nationwide healthcare exchange specifications, and bridges the gap between federal agencies and multiple statewide prescription exchanges. CONNECT was expanded to enable RESTful transactions to query patient prescription drug information from the existing inter-state prescription drug data sharing exchange, PMP InterConnect, and integrates it into health IT systems via PMP Gateway. PMP InterConnect (PMPi) facilitates the transfer of PDMP data across state lines. Today, 44 states have agreed to interstate data sharing via PMPi. PMP Gateway (Gateway) is a fully-managed service integrating PDMP data and insights into electronic health records (EHRs), including Epic, Cerner and other major EHRs, in hospitals and health systems as well as pharmacy management systems.
The “CONNECT Empowering Opioid Exchange” project enables DoD to address a vital readiness issue and can be leveraged by other federal agencies. By providing a trusted, open source solution that is committed to keeping our citizens and military safe, and pursuing a more effective and efficient methodology of monitoring and using prescription drug information, better patient treatments can be developed across the U.S.
“Appriss Health is honored to be recognized by the FedHealthIT Innovation Awards alongside government and industry leaders from across the federal health technology and consulting sector,” said Rob Cohen, president, Appriss Health. “We are proud to share this honor with our partner FHA, as well as with other projects from other esteemed government agencies including Veterans Affairs, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, National Institute of Health, Food and Drug Administration, and the Administration for Children and Families, amongst others.”
Cohen continued, “We know that 44 Americans die each day due to prescription opioid overdoses and 91 die from all opioids, a fourfold increase since 1999. And that for each prescription opioid overdose death there are 12 treatment admissions, 25 ED visits, and 105 people who abused or were dependent on opioids. Every day we approach our work with this weighing heavily on our minds. That is why we are steadfastly-dedicated to transforming PDMPs into revolutionary clinical tools that are at the center of the opioid epidemic response. Our initiatives include sharing information across state lines, integrating information and advanced analytics into clinical information systems in the healthcare workflow, and extending PDMPs beyond just risk identification to point-of-care vehicles for providing clinicians and patients with the resources and tools they need to change outcomes and save lives.”
Cohen concluded, “This award further substantiates the fact that government agencies have recognized that the PMPi and Gateway model in place now is well-positioned to facilitate in-workflow access to multi-state PDMP data and analytics.”
About Appriss Health
Appriss Health provides the nation's most comprehensive platform for early identification, prevention and management of substance use disorder (SUD), within clinical workflow. We provide government agencies with a repository of controlled substance dispensing information combined with advanced analytics, and deliver real-time clinical decision support, critical insights and interventions to physicians, pharmacists, and care team members through millions of patient encounters each year. Our solutions enable the assessment and management of clinical risk in order to positively impact patient safety and population health outcomes. For more information, please visit www.apprisshealth.com.
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Attachments:
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/836fae81-1927-4a36-b1f8-75b3412babd3