For people going through addiction treatment, relapses can happen at any time. So, operating off the notion that close monitoring could offer more opportunities for early intervention, two health technology companies are working to leverage remote patient monitoring to offer better care to people with alcohol use disorder.
Soberlink, makers of a high-tech, FDA-cleared remote breathalyzer, will team up with remote monitoring and patient engagement platform provider MAP Health Management to launch a pilot program in April. MAP’s analytics and risk management platform is specifically geared towards improving clinical and financial outcomes for chronic behavioral health illnesses like substance use disorder, and program participants will be given a Soberlink device to link to their MAP profile.
The key is accountability: the Soberlink breathalyzer uses facial recognition technology to confirm identify of the user, and it will send real-time data to MAP’s care platform in the event that the user tests positive for alcohol use, misses scheduled tests or performs a test with negative results.
“The number one factor in improving outcomes is early intervention,” MAP Health Management CEO Jacob Levenson said in a statement. “Soberlink’s breathalyzer enables our ecosystem of patients, providers and health insurance companies to have a real-time understanding of who is at risk. The net result is saved lives and saved dollars.”
The platform will then notify the proper care team members if it deems the patient at a high risk for relapse. It will also alert coordinated team members if the patient is using alcohol, as MAP Health has found 54.6 percent of all first post-acute treatment relapses on their platform involve alcohol, regardless of the patient’s drug of choice.
Soberlink and MAP Health both work with many treatment programs around the country separately, but combining the two technologies on a level that allows for population health management is new. While remote patient monitoring is becoming something of the norm for chronic conditions like diabetes or COPD – with over 7.1 million reportedly taking part in such a program in 2016 – it’s new to the addiction space. Soberlink also offers an online dashboard to track the breathalyzer, but the partnership with MAP Health allows for a much larger, diverse patient population.
“We’re excited to partner with MAP and deliver our breathalyzer technology to their ecosystem,” Soberlink CEO Brad Keays said in a statement. “Our FDA-cleared device has shown in numerous studies to be a significant factor in improving outcomes. We are very excited to see the actionable data from our devices be utilized by MAP to improve outcomes.”
