Published On: Mon, Oct 26th, 2020

Electronic Health Records May Help Diagnose Opioid Use Disorder

Information in patients’ electronic health records may help identify people with an opioid use disorder, according to a study by Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine in collaboration with Geisinger, the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, and Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. 

The study found that although the number of patients enrolled in the medical monitoring program diagnosed with an opioid use disorder was 2%, a review of two-hundred of those in the programs showed that in reality 73% of those had an opioid use disorder. This indicates “the necessity for alternative diagnostic strategies”. 

Patients are typically diagnosed with an opioid use disorder at a face to face appointment with their physician, but a manual review of their electronic health records, Patient Engagement, along with prescription history and other data, may be a more accurate tool in pinpointing who has a disorder. 

Janet Robishaw, Ph.D., co-author, senior associate dean for research and chair of the Department of Biomedical Sciences in FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine, says that, “Precision medicine within integrated health systems such as Geisinger could be a major associated factor in developing more efficient pain treatments with less risk for addiction, and studies of this potential could be helped by establishing more effective proxy measures for opioid use disorder using data from electronic health records.” 

About the Author

Discover more from The Boca Raton Tribune

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading