CRM
Over a nearly 15-year tenure at Caron Treatment Centers, Ming R. Wang, M.D., has seen the addiction treatment organization become a go-to destination for patients with complex medical needs. The medical director of Caron Pennsylvania believes advancements in technology could revolutionize the organization’s approach to treating these high-acuity patients.
Up to this point, the impact of artificial intelligence on Caron operations has been felt largely in improving clinician workflow through use of ambient listening technology. The value of having these capabilities in patient care should not be diminished, but Wang says he sees even more powerful applications ahead.
He believes patterns identified through AI could ultimately help Caron predict the most adverse outcomes that can occur during a treatment stay. “The next step will be to use AI as an adjunctive diagnostic tool to pick up sentinel events,” Wang says. This would not be meant to replace the standard assessment, he emphasizes.
It is common for Caron to admit a patient who may have used substances just before entering treatment and could be on the verge of an overdose event. Wang believes AI could help to analyze patient data that would identify who could be most at risk.
He wants to start by looking at medical sentinel events, then proceeding to psychiatric events. Being able to assess suicide risk more accurately, for example, would offer a huge benefit. “Some patients do not display red flags [for suicidality],” Wang says.
He says he doesn’t know of other substance use treatment organizations that are making strides in risk stratification efforts. Caron’s pursuit of this could only enhance its standing as an organization willing to serve patients that other facilities don’t see as a fit. Caron also serves a much broader-based patient mix than in past years, with private-pay arrangements less common today and numerous insurers now working with the provider.
AI already has generated efficiencies for Caron’s clinical team, improving staff’s capability to meet accreditation and state regulatory standards for documentation. A current priority in the organization involves leveraging technology for the nursing staff. “They are the heavy lifters here,” Wang says of nurses. “A lot of their work is redundant and tedious.”
He adds, “The nurses are the eyes of our medical providers; they depend on what the nurses tell them. If they’re not giving them good information, that’s a problem.”
With the organization seeing more severe medical co-morbidities in today’s patient population, collaboration with medical providers has proven essential. Some patients with alcohol use disorders present with such significant liver disease that they become candidates for a liver transplant. Caron has collaborative arrangements with health systems in Pennsylvania and New York that have specialties in transplantation. Wang says.
Collaboration with its technology partners at Sigmund also has been highly important for Caron, Wang says. “I’m pretty old-school, but even I recognize that the technology we have today is a powerful instrument,” he says.
Wang says he looks forward to working with Sigmund to identify new ways to leverage AI for the benefit of treatment. “As we learn more about its capacity, I’m sure we’ll think up more ways to use it,” he says.
