Technology proving successful in supporting fight against opioid epidemic

"We are compelled to use every tool at our disposal to fight the addiction crisis in our region. OARS technology will help Heywood Medical Group physicians to more effectively respond to our patient needs, help improve patient outcomes and support the delivery of exceptional care," said Heywood Healthcare President and CEO Win Brown, BA, MSB, MHA, FACHE.  "As an independent and progressive healthcare system focusing on innovative ways to address the opioid crisis, OARS empowers our healthcare team to provide an up-to-date, comprehensive level of care that supports the recovery process for our patients fighting addiction."

Many victims are young, often in their 20s or 30s but the opioid crisis has taken a hefty toll across age and class groups and the crisis touches all demographics.

Dr. Katherine Fitzgerald runs a Suboxone/recovery clinic out of her primary care office at Heywood Primary Care in Gardner, Massachusetts. Equipped with Q2i's pioneering software solution, she reported, "OARS is proving to be effective in helping our patients feel more connected with their healthcare team and is enabling us to better support our patients with their recovery program." 

OARS consists of a healthcare team portal and a patient mobile app and is designed to result in fewer relapses, reduced inpatient admissions/ readmissions, reduced overdose incidents and ER visits. One of the many features of OARS is that it enables healthcare teams to monitor and support patients' progress in real-time and provides highly effective data analysis tools that help identify trends and flag areas of concern for action.

Dr. Fitzgerald added, "OARS is empowering our healthcare team with important actionable patient data previously not available to us, and this data is available in real-time."  

Mark Hawke, Mayor of Gardner, said, "As the epidemic of opioid addiction continues to escalate the impact and public threat to our community increases. I'm encouraged to see that utilizing technology like OARS is successfully helping our city tackle this national crisis at a local level."

To learn more about OARS, visit www.q2i.com/oars

About Q2i

Q2i collaborates with multidisciplinary healthcare teams, providers and payers to understand and then realize unmet technology needs. We facilitate improvements in patient care by supporting patients with their treatment plans through better connection and information exchange with their healthcare teams.

Q2i develops technology that assists health care providers in achieving the IHI quadruple aim of improving the patient experience of care (including quality and satisfaction), improving the health of populations, reducing the per capita cost of health care and improved clinician experience.

About Heywood Healthcare
Heywood Healthcare is an independent, community-owned healthcare system serving north central Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. It is comprised of Heywood Hospital, a non-profit, 134-bed acute-care hospital in Gardner, MA; Athol Hospital, a 25-bed not-for-profit, Critical Access Hospital in Athol, MA; the Quabbin Retreat in Petersham, MA; and Heywood Medical Group with primary care physicians and specialists located throughout the region. The organization includes six satellite facilities in MA; Heywood Rehabilitation Center and Heywood Urgent Care in Gardner; West River Health Center in Orange; Winchendon Health Center and Murdock School-based Health Center in Winchendon; Heywood Charitable Foundation; the North Quabbin Community Coalition, an affiliate organization; and The Quabbin Retreat in Petersham.

SOURCE Q2i

Related Links

http://www.q2i.com