Opioid abuse — as you know — has now become a national crisis, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimating a $78.5 billion annual burden on the American economy. What can be done?
Advancing better practices for pain management is a key strategy in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) plan for addressing this epidemic. This is where healthcare providers come in. If we can start our patients along a track that does not include the heavy use of opioids for
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Pain Management
Starlight Children’s Foundation Leverages Virtual Reality to Reduce Pain for Hospitalized Children
- Denver Film Festival showcases how Starlight Children’s Foundation leverages Lenovo’s Mirage™ Solo VR headset in its Virtual Reality program as a procedural tool for critically ill young patients, primarily to reduce anxiety during mild to moderately painful procedures.
- Since 2018, Starlight Children's Foundation has placed over 1,300 Virtual Reality headsets in over 300 healthcare facilities transforming the hospital experience for more than 18,000 seriously ill kids.
This week,
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Sheba Medical Center to Create The World’s First Fully VR-Based Hospital
- Sheba Medical Center is creating the world-first first VR-based hospital by leverage XRHealth’s virtual reality platform as part of their strategic innovation commitment to digital health. - Sheba will leverage XRHealth’s VR platform for cognitive therapy, physical therapy, pain relief, and many other applications throughout the entire hospital.Sheba Medical Center, the leading medical center in the Middle East and an internationally recognized healthcare facility in Israel, today announced a
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AppliedVR, NCI Partner to Evaluate VR As Therapy for Cancer-Related Anxiety
- AppliedVR announced a collaboration with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to evaluate virtual reality (VR) as a solution to help address the underlying cancer-related anxiety. - The proof-of-concept study will evaluate AppliedVR’s virtual reality system on neuro-oncology patients’ “scanxiety,” a term used to describe the anxiety patients with cancer experience before or after medical diagnostics scans.AppliedVR, a Los Angeles, CA-based
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Karuna Labs’ VR Rehab Management Now Available for Workers Comp Patients with Chronic Pain
- Karuna Labs, creator of personalized functional restoration and chronic pain management programs using virtual reality (VR) technology, is available to patients through workers’ compensation insurance. - Karuna Labs’ Virtual Embodiment Therapy will increase adherence to physical therapy and focus on exercises performed in daily living to improve quality of life.Virtual Reality (VR) technology is now being integrated workers comp injuries in order to alleviate chronic pain and improve range of
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AppliedVR Awarded $2.9M Grants to Study Virtual Reality As An Opioid-Sparing Treatment
- AppliedVR awarded more than $2.9M in NIDA grants to support clinical trials to study virtual reality platforms as an opioid-sparing tool for acute and chronic pain. - The grants will enable the company to advance two clinical trial programs respectively with Geisinger and Cleveland Clinic.AppliedVR, a Los Angeles, CA-based next generation of digital medicine announced that it has been awarded two multi-year grants totaling more than $2.9 million from the National Institute on Drug Abuse
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Study: VR Mirroring Can Improve Range of Motion in Chronic Pain Patients
- Mirroring techniques in virtual reality have the potential to improve range of motion in chronic pain patients, a new Karuna Labs study finds. - The study provides evidence that MVF, originally developed to help with neuropathic pain, in VR can influence the perception of pain in the affected limb.- These results may lead to greater knowledge of the mechanisms by which MVF can relieve chronic pain in additional areas. Karuna Labs, the creator of chronic pain management programs using virtual
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Does Physician Dispensing Contribute To The Opioid Crisis?
According to the Center for Disease Control, an average of 130 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose. Although illicit opiates such as heroin and fentanyl are the primary drivers of the opioid crisis, prescription opiates still play a large role. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that 21-29 percent of patients who receive prescriptions for opioids will misuse the drug and 8 to 12 percent of opioid recipients will develop a disorder. Almost all heroin users have misused
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Appriss Health Acquires Behavioral Health Platform OpenBeds
- Appriss Health acquires cloud-based behavioral health platform OpenBeds to remove gaps in behavioral health treatment referrals. - OpenBeds ensures that providers don't spend hours of their day manually trying to find treatment facilities for patients, because the data is available to them within minutes.- The acquisition of OpenBeds helps Appriss Health to build on its efforts to address the complex and changing opioid crisis plaguing communities through proven solutions for patient
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How Will FY2020 IPPS Proposed Rule Affect Hospital CDI Programs?
In April, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the fiscal year (FY) 2020 inpatient prospective payment systems (IPPS) proposed rule. The proposed rule notably includes approximately 1,500 complications or comorbidities (CC)/major complications or comorbidities (MCC) designation changes and 324 changes to International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10-CM codes, along with several other updates. The designation changes are an effort to respond to the notion that the
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