Norton Healthcare targets improved opioid management

Norton Healthcare is integrating its prescription drug monitoring program with its electronic health records system to support the ability to share prescription information across state lines.

The organization, serving Kentucky and Southern Indiana, also is adopting an analytics platform in its emergency department to gain insights into improving opioid stewardship, and help identify and manage substance abuse within the patient population.

“The opioid epidemic is a major concern for our region,” says Steven Heilman, MD, and senior vice president and chief health innovation officer at Norton, citing a 2018 report from the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy, which found that 1,333 people in the state died from drug overdoses that year.


“Now, our providers have improved access to new resources to help communities confront the epidemic,” Heilman adds.

Norton will use the analytics platform of Appriss Health, and so far, feedback from early provider users has been very positive, Heilman adds. “With these new technologies we hope to progressively affect patient care and safety, and protect more patient lives in Kentucky and Indiana.”

Systemwide integration of the Kentucky and Indiana platforms, which are named KASPER and INSPECT, include information coming from other states and Norton Healthcare’s Epic electronic health record systems at the point of care, which increases ease of access and use of prescription drug monitoring (PDMP) programs, and helps improve safety and outcomes.

Previously, providers had to log into separate information systems to query patient information which took time away from patient care. Now, Norton saves providers about 10 minutes for each query of information.

The organization further is implementing the NarxCare medication management platform in the emergency department.

NarxCare analyses and presents data from state prescription management programs to help prescribers identify and manage patients at risk for substance abuse. Physicians can use NarxCare tools to conduct analytics with insights presented and accessible in the Norton EHR.

For physicians without analytics acumen, NarxCare offers machine- leaning based patient risk analysis and other information in a visual interactive format that supports clinician decision-making.