The following blog post is an excerpt from Bamboo Health’s 2021 Annual Impact Report.
Amber, 32-years-old, has been in recovery from opioid use disorder for three years. She was able to quit heroin with the support of individual and group therapy in combination with buprenorphine. Last year, she started working full time again. When Amber’s father suddenly passes away; however, her grief is overwhelming. She turns back to heroin to cope, but with the increasing fentanyl in the supply, Amber overdoses. A bystander calls 911 and responding medics revive her. At the ED, the providers treat her acute needs, provide information about drug treatment facilities, and discharge her. A week later, following her father’s funeral, Amber uses again, this time alone, with no one to call for help when she overdoses. Her behavioral health treatment center finds out about the first overdose more than a month later through insurance claim data, but it’s too late.
While Amber is not a real person, unfortunately, scenarios like hers happen every day, fueling unprecedented fatal drug overdoses in the U.S. Complex problems like this require innovation from various angles, but in collaboration, not in silos.
Bamboo Health delivers products that support real-time care collaboration, promoting better outcomes for patients and making progress against the mental health and substance use crisis that has cut too many lives short and left family and friends grieving.
Our Behavioral Health Care Coordination (BHCC) solution facilitates provider-to-provider communication and coordination. Embedded in the clinical workflow at the point of care, the platform displays real-time data often disconnected from current EHRs, with decision support and patient analytics.
Here is how Amber’s situation could have been different through our BHCC solution. This time when she overdoses, her ED providers check the PDMP, integrated into their EHR, and see that she has been on a steady dose of buprenorphine. The BHCC platform also gives her treating providers visibility of her care team at the behavioral healthcare treatment center. At the same time, the treatment center receives a Ping, alerting them that Amber has been admitted to the ED. The treatment center connects with the ED providers to guide her care while admitted and talks to Amber once she is stabilized. The treatment center and ED providers discuss Amber’s transfer to outpatient treatment, which can be facilitated by the OpenBeds solution to find near real-time availability of beds. They determine that an appointment the next day is the best course of action. She’s discharged with her buprenorphine prescription continuing and an appointment set for the next morning. Her treatment center connects her with a peer counselor to help her navigate the next week until the funeral and continue regular appointments until the mental health crisis eases in the coming months.
The BHCC solution enables communication and collaboration missing from the first scenario to give Amber a better chance of success on her path to recovery.
To read our full 2021 Annual Impact Report, click here.