Dive Brief:
- Athenahealth, a provider of cloud-based services and mobile applications for health systems, has announced the launch of a daily news hub that will draw on data from more than 80,000 healthcare providers and 81 million de-identified patients on the company's network to report on trends in U.S. healthcare.
- The company aims to provide insight into topics around health system performance and trends connected to public health.
- The site's first focus is on opioids, including provider prescribing patterns and patient demographics.
Dive Insight:
The effort provides an overall advance in the way of information sharing and harnessing big data for the benefit of public health, trends considered both overdue and key in moving forward in healthcare reform. The first focus on opioid trends will include expert interviews, data-backed charts and infographics, and features exploring the impacts of opioids on patients and providers.
Among the preliminary findings, the company found primary care physicians prescribe opioids for uninsured patients (12.7%) at double the rate of commercially insured patients (6.4%). Opioids are most commonly prescribed to older patients, with 21.1% of primary care prescriptions going to patients over 46, compared to 3.1% for those 18-25, according to athenaInsight.
The company highlighted that also as part of its efforts to assist in the opioid crisis, it has already worked with the CDC to launch the Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain.
The time is right to tackle the opioid issue; data indicate opioid misuse to have increased 317% from 2007 to 2014 and private insurance claims for related medical services or procedures up 3,203% during that time. athenahealth's efforts serve to further complement federal efforts and industry attention toward factors under physicians' control including safer pain management.