Appriss Health, which provides software for prescription drug monitoring programs, has acquired OpenBeds, a cloud-based platform that identifies, unifies, and tracks behavioral health resources.
By facilitating rapid referrals with up-to-date availability of both inpatient and outpatient behavioral health services, Appriss said, OpenBeds improves patient access to treatment for crisis, mental health, and substance use disorder.
Appriss said the acquisition of OpenBeds will help it build on its efforts to address the complex and changing opioid crisis plaguing our communities through solutions for patient management and treatment. Appriss Health’s PMP Gateway managed solution enables the integration into clinical workflow of an opioid stewardship platform. This platform now includes multi-state prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) information, data visualizations, analytics, the OpenBeds platform, and other capabilities and resources to support providers and patients in appropriate prescribing, pain management, and treatment clinical decision making.
“We are in the midst of a public health crisis. It is widely recognized that one of the major barriers to addressing the opioid crisis is access to treatment,” said Nishi Rawat, M.D., co-founder of OpenBeds, in a statement. “As a critical care provider, I often saw patients sent home after opioid overdoses rather than being connected to treatment, and patients boarded for days in the ED until they were connected to inpatient psychiatric care. That’s why I founded OpenBeds. With technology, we can do so much more to improve outcomes by quickly connecting patients to appropriate and quality treatment.”
The states of Indiana and Delaware have already deployed the OpenBeds platform on a statewide basis. In Delaware – where more than 17,000 referrals have been made since the system was implemented in September 2018 – over half of referrals are acknowledged within 30 minutes and the system is helping the state identify gaps in care delivery and ensure that people have the opportunity to get appropriate treatment. Agreements are also in place for statewide implementation of the OpenBeds platform in six additional states, the company said.
Appriss said that more than 130 of the nation’s largest electronic health record (EHR) platforms and every major pharmacy chain and pharmacy management system have integrated its platform directly into their healthcare information technology systems, currently connecting more than 500,000 prescribers and pharmacists at nearly 80,000 facilities in 40 states and supporting more than 60 million patient encounters per month.
“OpenBeds shares the same DNA as Appriss Health and our belief that clinicians can greatly improve patient care and safety with timely access to critical health information and clinical tools,” said Rob Cohen, president of Appriss, in a statement. “With OpenBeds, providers no longer need to spend hours of their day manually trying to find treatment facilities for patients – the data is available to them within minutes, in a secure network, allowing more time to care for patients. And patients are able to be connected, referred digitally, and admitted to treatment much more quickly, ensuring they receive the care they need in a timely manner before they might experience adverse medical events.”
