Policy and Tech Adoptions That Can Reverse Negative Trends in the Opioid Epidemic
Healthcare Business Today
October 3rd, 2021
By: Cooper Zelnick, Chief Strategy Officer, Groups Recover Together
In the face of the emerging Covid-19 public health crisis, legislators, regulatory bodies and private companies enacted new policy and formed the types of working coalitions that had not been seen since World War II. Businesses and healthcare providers transitioned nearly overnight to relying on teleconferencing applications and the federal government supercharged a vaccine development program that delivered multiple effective vaccines faster than ever before.
Combatting a deadly pathogen that spreads easily created tremendous urgency and demanded significant resources, but despite our successes – including the vaccines – we have seen worsening outcomes across other disease states over the past eighteen months. Opioid use disorder, a chronic condition directly impacted by loneliness and isolation, not to mention economic uncertainty, has long plagued the United States, and outcomes have worsened markedly since the pandemic began. Amidst rising overdose deaths and growing despair for those struggling with addiction, we have many lessons to learn from our fight against Covid-19 as we continue to combat addiction.
The opioid epidemic is decades old, but a combination of new technology and new policy could reverse some of the devastation wrought by Covid-19 and improve outcomes moving forward. Here are three sensible changes that could get us on the right track: