Kelowna business Custom Health Inc. is fighting the opioid crisis one step at a time.
A new Opioid Addiction Deterrence Task Force has been launched in Washington, D.C. by the American Medical Technology Coalition (AMTC) in which Custom Health is a member.
"The task force is really pulling together everyone involved from pain management to prescribing opioids to tracking opioid use, but really leveraging technologies that exist and providing data back to clinicians," said Custom Health's CEO and Executive Director of AMTC Shane Bishop.
Numbers from the National Centre for Drug Abuse in the U.S. found that in 2023 enough opioid prescriptions were handed out for 46.7 per cent of Americans to receive one.
"The goal is to really decrease the risk of opioid use disorders," Bishop added.
The primary objectives set out for the task force are innovative technology solutions, policy advocacy, research and education, and community engagement.
Being Kelowna based, Bishop knows the opioid crisis isn't just a U.S. problem.
"We're hoping we can bring that technology and services and solutions back up to Canada in the not too distant future."
The University of Toronto released statistics in April stating Canada saw opioid-related deaths double between 2019 and 2021, going from 3,007 to 6,222.
Statistics also found that 70 per cent of overall deaths were men and one in four deaths were people in their 20s and 30s.
Learn more about the Opioid Addiction Deterrence Task Force at medtechcoalition.org.
-with files from the Canadian Press
