Clinical Decision Support System for Opioid Substitution Therapy

Opioid addiction is a chronic relapsing disorder affecting millions of people worldwide and having significant social and health impacts. Opioid substitution therapy has turned out to be one of the most effective treatments for opioid addiction. This paper introduces a Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) for opioid substitution therapy. Opioid-dependent patients are one of the most resource-demanding patient groups in addiction care in Finland. The CDSS is needed in order to achieve an effective and efficient treatment process for opioid substitution therapy. The developed CDSS has proven to be an effective tool in the case organization. The improvements have increased productivity and ensured the quality of the diagnostics processes. A major factor in productivity improvement is that the developed CDSS keeps track on the tasks that the persons involved in the process have to perform. Furthermore, the CDSS enables effective management of patient flow, as the status of each patient in the process is fully visible.