Partnership HealthPlan of California Signs Program Participation Agreement with SafeUseNow
ENCINITAS, Calif. (PRWEB) July 23, 2014 -- SafeUseNow℠, a prescription drug abuse risk identification and intervention program developed by Principled Strategies, today announced a service agreement with Partnership HealthPlan of California. Utilizing SafeUseNow’s patent-pending risk model, Partnership HealthPlan can quickly identify patients at risk of misusing and abusing controlled substance drugs, particularly prescription opioids, helping the Plan to reduce addiction among its members.
The agreement with Partnership HealthPlan was made possible through support from the John A. and James L. Knight Foundation to SafeUseNow, which offers a proven program to identify combinations of prescribers, patients and pharmacies at risk of contributing to the prescription drug abuse problem.
“We are thrilled to work with Partnership HealthPlan of California as the first Medicaid plan in the state to utilize SafeUseNow to identify, intervene and help reduce prescription drug abuse risk,” said Patrick J. Burns, president of Principled Strategies. “With the assistance of the Knight Foundation grant, we can help the members of Partnership HealthPlan in 14 Northern California counties live healthier lives, and enable prescribing physicians contracted with the Plan to improve their prescribing practices to avoid abusive prescription drug use.”
“Partnership HealthPlan is pleased to be selected to test the SafeUseNow product in a Medi-Cal (California’s version of Medicaid) population,” said Robert L. Moore, MD, MPH, chief medical officer of Partnership HealthPlan. “Having prescriber-specific risk scores and recommendations for safer prescribing is a key component to our plan-wide initiative to manage pain more safely.”
Partnership HealthPlan of California is the latest in a growing number of leading national health insurance plans and pharmaceutical manufacturers to adopt SafeUseNow’s prescription drug abuse risk identification and intervention services. SafeUseNow is helping reduce the growing problem of opioid drug abuse by making prescribing safer and more effective.
SafeUseNow delivers actionable information to help healthcare stakeholders educate prescribers to more effectively and safely treat their patients. SafeUseNow also allow customers to proactively monitor prescribing patterns for early detection of changes in prescribing trends and behavior.
Since the 1990s, prescription drug abuse has significantly increased in the United States, making the need for an effective identification and intervention solution critical. Until the development of SafeUseNow, a lack of actionable information about prescription drug abuse risk, despite the creation of state-sponsored prescription drug monitoring programs, made it difficult to combat the problem.
SafeUseNow was named a winner of the Knight News Challenge: Health in January 2014. The challenge, supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, sought ideas that harness the power of data and information for the health of communities. With Knight Foundation funding, SafeUseNow will scale its services for use by Medicaid plans in California as well as leading national health insurance carriers, Blue Cross Blue Shield plans and pharmaceutical manufacturers.
“SafeUseNow is applying data and information to help address a pervasive problem,” said Michael Maness, Knight Foundation vice president of journalism and media innovation. “Bringing the program to more communities is a big step towards reducing prescription drug abuse, and providing people with the resources they need to take action.”
About SafeUseNow
SafeUseNow is a risk identification and intervention program developed by Principled Strategies, a healthcare consultancy with expertise in predictive analytics, optimization, and risk analysis. The SafeUseNow advantage is 17 predictive risk factors discovered in a multi-year study of physician prescribing, pharmacy dispensing, and patient utilization of controlled substance drugs. SafeUseNow is an actionable solution for systematically and efficiently combating the misuse, abuse, addiction and diversion of controlled substance drugs.
To learn more, visit http://www.safeusenow.com and follow @safeusenow on Twitter.
About Partnership HealthPlan of California
The Partnership HealthPlan of California is a public/private organization designed to provide a cost-effective healthcare delivery system to Medi-Cal recipients in 14 Northern California counties, including Solano, Napa, Yolo, Sonoma and Marin. The HealthPlan's goals are to improve access, quality and cost effectiveness through a managed care system. The HealthPlan links each of its 455,000 members with providers from its network of 890 primary care physicians and over 2,500 medical specialists. Partnership HealthPlan has been successful in reducing inappropriate emergency room usage, delivering an appropriate level of inpatient care, developing innovative case management programs and providing more services locally. To learn more, visit http://www.partnershiphp.org.
About the Knight Foundation
Knight Foundation supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities and foster the arts. We believe that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. For further information, please visit: http://www.knightfoundation.org.
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Patrick J. Burns, Principled Strategies, Inc., http://www.safeusenow.com, +1 (760) 230-6323, [email protected]
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