Digital Technology Solutions to Address the Opioid Crisis

Why this challenge?

“Every day, more than 130 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids. The misuse of and addiction to opioids is a serious national crisis that affects public health as well as social and economic welfare.”, observes the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Needless to say, the Opioid crisis calls for urgent actions, both in the US and internationally.

The State of Ohio in the US committed funds to address the Opioid crisis in Ohio, seeking technology solutions that address prevention, treatment, overdose avoidance, or overdose response.  The goal of this challenge is to promote development of solutions to enable a meaningful, positive impact on the opioid crisis.

Results

In phase 2 of this 3-phase challenge, a panel of external judges selected 12 winners who each received US$200K awards.

These 12 winners proposed solutions to enable risk addiction, to reduce effects of withdrawal, to enable access to relapse or overdose interventions, or to protect first responders from inadvertent exposure.

Nine of the twelve winners posed solutions involving digital technology.

Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay.