Supporting a Caring Health System
By Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick
Twitter: @drnic1
Host of Dr. Nick: The Incrementalist – #TheIncrementalist
On this episode I talked to Collin O’Neill, the CEO of Pilleve (@Pilleve1) and Gautam Chebrolu, the Founder and CTO of Pilleve a company addressing the devastating effects of the opioid crisis with innovative technology built to work within the existing pharmaceutical distribution systems.
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The company’s early roots came from personal experiences bound together with a desire to solve the problem from a bio-medical engineering perspective and that of a front line pharmacists. As they describe the problem the sourcing of these drugs in many cases originates form what you could call a legal path with over 12 million misused opioid prescriptions and in 2018 over 70,000 opioid related overdoses many with tragic consequences.
Many of these drugs enter the system through ‘Diversion’ through multiple roots – in fact Colin shares one of the stories where they were able to demonstrate the caring system and solution and alerting a mother to diversion that was going on with her prescribed medication that she was previously unaware of. There are some important side benefits of this approach that starts to influence behavior of people to help them reduce their dependency on opioid medications reducing the risks and allowing those that need access to appropriate pain relief to obtain it easily. In fact in the case of the elderly this new style container is not only child proof, but like many of the existing alternatives, actually easy to use and open to get the medications out. You can watch the process here
With the Pandemic one of the drivers of increased use and abuse of opioids has seen a dramatic increase – depression and loneliness further compounding an already huge problem impacting our society.
Listen in to hear how they have integrated their solution into the existing workflow, providing additional value to the medication process and offering new insights about patients actual use of drugs that includes timing of medication and real time feedback on its impact on the patients condition.
About the Show
For years Dr. Nick van Terheyden aka Dr. Nick, has served as a voice on the impact of new technologies on healthcare, earning a reputation as a leading authority on where the future of medicine is going. Combining powers of observation and real world experience, Dr. Nick has seen many predictions come true and makes the case that innovations in healthcare can be accomplished incrementally, not just by moonshot events. Tune in to hear Dr. Nick: The Incrementalist and his guests discuss what the future of healthcare looks like, how we will get there, and what it will take to improve healthcare for all.
This article was originally published on the Dr. Nick – The Incrementalist blog and is republished here with permission.