Recently published white paper estimates tool could result in 15% fewer prescription opioid overdoses
RICHMOND, Va. (September 22, 2017) – Venebio Group, a leader in personalized risk prediction algorithms, today announced that Amida Care, a New York-based health plan provider, has implemented Venebio Opioid Advisor™ (VOA™), the company’s risk-screening tool for prescription opioid overdose.
Amida Care is the second health plan to use VOA following Virginia Premier Health Plan, which began using the tool to screen for at-risk patients earlier this year.
A recently published white paper, “Predictive Analytics Can Help Reduce Prescription Opioid Overdoses and Health Care Costs,” projected VOA to help reduce the incidence of prescription opioid overdose by 15 percent, leading to:
- 500 fewer prescription opioid overdoses,
- 400 fewer emergency department visits,
- 120 fewer hospitalizations, and
- saving more than $2 million in annual costs associated with treating prescription opioid overdose per 100,000 opioid-using patients.[1]
“Almost every day there’s a national news story about the opioid epidemic and its devastation, but too few reports about potential solutions,” said Barbara K. Zedler, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of Venebio Group. “VOA’s demonstrated ability to identify those at risk of prescription opioid overdose gives health care providers and health plans the opportunity to intervene and address those patients’ personal risk factors before a tragedy can occur.”
VOA uses a proprietary algorithm to develop a personalized risk profile based on multiple demographic and clinical variables associated with prescription opioid overdose. It is the only validated clinical decision support tool that quantifies a patient’s likelihood of experiencing a life-threatening overdose from a prescription opioid, determines a personalized risk factor profile for each patient and provides clinicians with individualized guidance regarding interventions to reduce the patient’s risk of overdose.
VOA is a patent-pending technology, developed with the support of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)[2]. Venebio has conducted retrospective validation studies in populations as large as 18 million opioid users and has published four peer-reviewed studies, two of which demonstrate VOA’s ability to predict with 90 percent accuracy the likelihood of a patient experiencing an unintentional overdose from a prescription opioid. [3,4] This high level of validated accuracy is enabled by the inclusion of clinical and pharmacy risk factors, specific to each individual, that may dramatically influence each patient’s risk of overdose.
For more information about Venebio Opioid Advisor, please visit voa.venebio.com.
About Venebio Group
Venebio is a research consultancy that provides cost-effective, custom solutions for complex life sciences problems. By integrating the expertise of a global network of scientists in a broad range of biomedical fields, Venebio delivers comprehensive project management and problem solving in genetic and molecular epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacovigilance, personalized medicine, bioinformatics, biomarker discovery, and epidemiologic literature reviews and analysis. Learn more at www.venebio.com and voa.venebio.com.
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- Thompson S, Sasinowski M, Zedler B, Joyce A, Tripodi M, Murrelle E. Predictive Analytics Can Help Reduce Prescription Opioid Overdoses and Health Care Costs. Richmond, VA: Venebio Group, LLC; 2017.
- Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R44DA042655. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
- Zedler B, Saunders W, Joyce A, Vick C, Murrelle E. Validation of a Screening Risk Index for Serious Prescription Opioid-Induced Respiratory Depression or Overdose in a US Commercial Health Plan Claims Database. Pain Medicine. 2017. Pain Med pnx009.https://academic.oup.com//painmedicine/article/doi/10.1093/pm/pnx009/3062389/Validation-of-a-Screening-Risk-Index-for-Serious?guestAccessKey=ba98ee0e-6f03-45a4-a9c7-91857e4dc954
- Zedler B, Xie L, Wang L, Joyce A, Vick C, Brigham J, et al. Development of a Risk Index for Serious Prescription Opioid-Induced Respiratory Depression or Overdose in Veterans’ Health Administration Patients. Pain Med. 2015;16(8):1566-79. https://academic.oup.com/painmedicine/article-lookup/doi/10.1111/pme.12777