In senior living communities and nursing homes, it’s often a challenge to keep residents with opioid-use disorder in treatment and monitor their medications when they can’t visit the doctor. An addiction medicine practice in Indiana found a fix by creating a platform combining smartphone and AI technology to connect patients with doctors and help providers comply with treatment regulations.

Peter Farr, MD, who runs an addiction practice and also is cofounder of Atadas, a telehealth medication monitoring technology company, developed a new technology with his brother and cofounder, Bill Farr, that helps move opioid-affected patients into recovery. To do so, they removed manual processes from four treatment areas by adding patient engagement capabilities through a smartphone app; adding virtual scheduling and patient consent documentation; automating take-medication reminders and dosage logs and automating compliance data collection.

“On the patient dashboard, a few clicks show the status of all paperwork and consent forms, which are requirements,” Peter Farr told HealthcareIT News. “The system alerts providers when patients miss crucial responsibilities within their medication-assisted treatment program: pill counts, clinic appointments, screenings and facilitator-led support meetings.” In two years, the program saw 100 patients remain in the medication-assisted treatment program 94% of the time, compared with 54% of the time without the technology.

Telehealth, patient data interoperability and AI all are transforming addiction medicine treatments, Farr added. He said that during the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth was proven as an effective tool in addiction treatments, with increased use in virtual medication monitoring, pill counting and treatment compliance.

More broadly, senior living already is harnessing the power, or at least recognizing the importance of AI, telehealth and data interoperability, as telehealth expands across the healthcare landscape as the pandemic recedes. Meanwhile, 99% of physicians and hospitals won’t give post-acute care referrals unless these organizations support data interoperability, according to a recent study. The long-term care industry set a 2023 deadline for achieving data interoperability, but many facilities are falling short of that goal.