Case Study: Fort HealthCare reduces opioid-related risk with Cerner’s high-risk alerts

Fort Healthcare cuts opioid prescriptions 53% with Cerner

Fort HealthCare, a healthcare system in rural Wisconsin, faced a significant challenge with a rapidly escalating local opioid crisis, where overdose death rates had nearly tripled. Their existing opioid treatment agreement was difficult to manage and relied on patient self-disclosure, creating logistical and social barriers to providing help. To combat this, they partnered with vendor Cerner to implement its Opioid Toolkit and Clinical Decision Support (CDS) system.

Cerner's solution involved deploying high-risk alerts that notify a patient's care team in near real-time based on prescription history analytics, prompting crucial conversations about naloxone. This eliminated the burden of self-disclosure and facilitated the provisioning of the life-saving drug. After implementing Cerner's opioid management solution, Fort HealthCare achieved a 53% decline in patients with opioid prescriptions and a 49% decline in patients with benzodiazepine prescriptions, significantly reducing the risk of harmful concurrent drug use.

Fort Healthcare