Using Mobile Technology to Reduce Opioid Overprescription in Veterans
Student Name
Grand Canyon University - NUR 590 USING MOBILE TECHNOLOGY TO REDUCE OPIOID 2
Purpose of Project
The purpose of this evidence-based practice project is to implement and evaluate the use of mobile devices in educating and monitoring rural United States military veterans with their use of opioid pain medications, and to promote improved communications with their Veterans Administration (VA) or civilian providers, via their regional medical centers or community-
based outpatient clinics (CBOC). The mobile devices will utilize commercially available applications on the veterans’ Apple or Android-enabled smartphones and will interface and update with the providers’ desktop or dashboard program, as well as allowing access to VA and Medicare Part D prescription information. All veteran’s phones will have the proposed My HealtheVet mobile application preloaded, which enables the users to send confidential messages to their providers, request appointments, and refill and track prescriptions (Huang et al., 2018, p. 84).
Background
U.S. veterans, particularly since 9/11, have been deployed in many combat theaters, resulting in various battlefield wounds and conditions. A recent survey indicated that over 9% of veterans experienced significant pain and have higher rates of opioid pain medication use and misuse than the general population (Cleland et al., 2020, p. 2) . Despite research that indicated that veterans have more frequent chronic pain, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) determined that there was no evidence that long-term opioid use was of any clinical benefit compared with other nonopioid treatments (Dowell et al., 2016, p. 15) . The VA, however, had tried to keep pace with national efforts in addressing chronic pain, and from January 2000 through December 2016, issued more than 97 million opioid pain medications (Grasso et al., 2017, p. 485) .