Brief Health System Project Description: An interesting project would be to look at innovative ways of helping people with opiate use disorder. Digital technologies can assist with this public health concern through the EMR by flagging the EMR of individuals who are treated with opioid use disorder by putting in a reminder to ask if the patient has a supply of Narcan to prevent accidental opioid overdose (CDC, nd). For example, in our EMR, anyone who has a documented opiate use disorder should be educated on Narcan and informed they can have a free dose available. A reminder would pop up in the computer to offer some Narcan. Moreover, these patients can be educated about the availability of wellness coaches to support a substance-free lifestyle and how support could be accessed via smartphones for individuals with substance use disorder for preventative strategies (Naslund & Aschbrenner, 2019).

Health System Project Goals:
To have patients with opiate use disorder have increased awareness of access to Narcan after they are discharged to reverse an accidental overdose.
Evaluation Measures:
The goals I have would be to involve patients in the development of a tool that would be helpful to them through qualitative research by asking if reminders that access to Narcan would be helpful. The measures I would use are qualitative methods such as open-ended interviews with patients and supportive individuals in their lives to find out what kind of substance use support they would find most helpful and useful.

Naslund, J. A., & Aschbrenner, K. A. (2019). Digital technology for health promotion: opportunities to address excess mortality in persons living with severe mental disorders. Evidence-Based Mental Health, 22(1), 17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/ebmental-2018-300034

Centers for Disease Control (nd). https://www.cdc.gov/stopoverdose/naloxone/index.html

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