Appriss Health, provider of the most comprehensive platform for opioid stewardship and substance use disorder (SUD) in the U.S., today announced that it has acquired OpenBeds, a leading cloud-based platform that identifies, unifies, and tracks behavioral health resources. By facilitating rapid referrals with up-to-date availability of both inpatient and outpatient behavioral health services, OpenBeds improves patient access to treatment for crisis, mental health, and substance use disorder.
“We are in the midst of a public health crisis. It is widely recognized that one of the major barriers to addressing the opioid crisis is access to treatment,” said Nishi Rawat, M.D., co-founder of OpenBeds. “As a critical care provider, I often saw patients sent home after opioid overdoses rather than being connected to treatment, and patients boarded for days in the ED until they were connected to inpatient psychiatric care. That’s why I founded OpenBeds. With technology, we can do so much more to improve outcomes by quickly connecting patients to appropriate and quality treatment.”
Indiana and Delaware have already deployed the OpenBeds platform on a statewide basis. In Delaware – where more than 17,000 referrals have been made since the system was implemented in September 2018 – over half of referrals are acknowledged within 30 minutes and the system is helping the state identify gaps in care delivery and ensure that people have the opportunity to get appropriate treatment. Agreements are also in place for statewide implementation of the OpenBeds platform in six additional states.
“Appriss Health shares our mission and has enabled OpenBeds to scale and expand our reach to more state and provider partners, ensuring that more patients with SUD and mental health challenges receive the care they need through our trusted network of treatment centers and referral entities,” Rawat said.
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The acquisition of OpenBeds helps Appriss Health to build on its efforts to address the complex and changing opioid crisis plaguing our communities through proven solutions for patient management and treatment. Appriss Health’s PMP Gateway managed solution is widely-deployed nationwide, and enables the integration into clinical workflow of a robust opioid stewardship platform. This platform includes multi-state prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) information, data visualizations, analytics, the OpenBeds platform, and a host of other capabilities and resources valuable in supporting providers and patients in appropriate prescribing, pain management, and treatment clinical decision making.
To enable this broad connectivity, more than 130 of the nation’s largest electronic health record (EHR) platforms and every major pharmacy chain and pharmacy management system have integrated the Appriss Health platform directly into their healthcare information technology systems, currently connecting more than 500,000 prescribers and pharmacists at nearly 80,000 facilities in 40 states and supporting more than 60 million patient encounters per month.
OpenBeds: Behavioral Health and SUD Treatment Access and Referral to Placement in Minutes
The OpenBeds network fosters collaboration and coordination among medical and mental health providers, social services, and substance use disorder programs. OpenBeds is highly configurable and adaptable to existing workflows and protocols. It is also fully HIPAA compliant and meets 42 CFR Part 2 requirements. With OpenBeds, organizations have access to:
- Digital connections for patient referrals to a comprehensive inventory of available crisis support services, inpatient psychiatric beds and outpatient programs, inpatient substance use disorder and outpatient programs, and community-based alternatives throughout an entire network of treatment providers;
- Clinical decision support for substance use disorder treatment based on American Society for Addiction Medicine (ASAM) placement criteria;
- Connection of patients to necessary social services to facilitate and sustain treatment;
- Secure digital communications including email and text capabilities;
- Digital registration and authentication;
- Digital screening and intake; and
- Customized, de-identified and aggregated reporting.
“OpenBeds shares the same DNA as Appriss Health and our belief that clinicians can greatly improve patient care and safety with timely access to critical health information and clinical tools,” said Rob Cohen, President, Appriss Health. “With OpenBeds, providers no longer need to spend hours of their day manually trying to find treatment facilities for patients – the data is available to them within minutes, in a secure network, allowing more time to care for patients. And patients are able to be connected, referred digitally, and admitted to treatment much more quickly, ensuring they receive the care they need in a timely manner before they might experience adverse medical events.”
Cohen continued, “OpenBeds is another important piece to round out our comprehensive behavioral health platform, providing our unmatched nationwide network of providers with an important resource to improve the care they provide to patients.”
Dr. Kara Odom Walker, Secretary, Delaware Department of Health and Social Services, noted the positive impact of the OpenBeds platform, which supports the Delaware Treatment and Referral Network.
“Real-time online treatment referrals and acceptances are an important step forward in making our behavioral health system more responsive for the people we serve. Because of the Delaware Treatment and Referral Network, health care providers, in consultation with individuals and their families, won’t have to spend hours on the phone trying to find out if a treatment slot or bed is available,” Walker said. “Faxed paperwork won’t get misplaced. And a bed won’t be given away to someone else while an individual seeking treatment tries to get to a treatment location.”
In Indiana, OpenBeds has facilitated the expansion of access to behavioral health care for Medicaid beneficiaries. “CareSource is proud to partner with OpenBeds in order to immediately connect our most vulnerable patient members to treatment options,” said Steve Smitherman, President, Indiana Market, CareSource, a provider of managed care services to 90,000 members across Indiana. “The ability to provide seamless continued support during treatment is critical to successful outcomes. We value this innovative collaboration to improve our members’ well-being.”
Date: October 07, 2019
Source: Appriss Health
