DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
DIGITAL FUTURES
Although digital technology is transforming all our lives, many organisations in the field have been slow to keep up. A recent EUDA webinar offered some practical lessons for adopting and developing new solutions. DDN reports
‘ D igital technology is all around us – it’ s integrated into our lives and the services we use,’
EUDA chief scientist Thomas Clausen told the agency’ s Techbased health and social responses to drug problems webinar.‘ But in our sector there’ s potential for more development to provide new and improved services and responses for people who use drugs.’
Tech could improve health and save lives, as well as enhance training and service quality, he said.‘ We know there are gaps in our field between service need and service provision’, and new tech-driven interventions could help narrow them. Many people who used drugs, however, didn’ t have the same access to technology as other people, he said.
Innovation was about having a vision to find a new way of solving a problem, said Alexander Baldacchino, clinical professor at the University of St Andrews School of Medicine. The challenge in the addiction field was to have an‘ innovative health and social care-related ecosystem for the common good’, he said. However, it was becoming more obvious that the data the field tried to link into meaningful predictions was far from perfect, partly through flawed or under-reporting. For drug-related deaths, for example, technology had the potential to make recording far more accurate and intelligent – to genuinely‘ understand the populations and their vulnerabilities’.
FRAGMENTED SYSTEMS Problems like complexity and fragmented systems meant that addiction care was‘ uniquely challenging’, he said.‘ So if we’ re able to utilise new technologies to help us in understanding clusters, predictions and pre venting further harm, then we should welcome that.’ We all utilised AI every day, often without realising it, he said.‘ So let’ s not be afraid of this technology.’
The potential uses of innovation in the field covered a huge range of areas, he pointed out – pharmacological and pharmaceutical, digital health and telemedicine( such as recovery apps and wearable technology), biotechnology and neuroscience, behavioural and psychosocial, virtual and augmented reality, the use of blockchain for patient data, cryptocurrency-based rewards, and more. His organisation had obtained funding from the Office for Life Sciences and Scotland’ s Chief Scientist Office and now had seven products about to enter the market. These included skin sensors for overdose detection that could be fitted into clothing, a low-cost AI-enabled overdose monitoring system, and wearable devices for monitoring oxygen, heart and respiratory rate.
The lessons his team had learned included the need to constantly monitor the digital divide, he said.‘ We need to reach out to different settings, and we need to combine with face-to-face interventions – this is an add-on to services, not an alternative.’ Other important considerations included flexibility, privacy and data security, the need to strengthen evaluation to make sure products were safe and effective, and the importance of engaging stakeholders early – including people with lived experience.‘ A common pitfall is designing in a silo then discovering, too late, that it doesn’ t fit into the workforce,’ he said.‘ It’ s not about the digital, it’ s not about the products, it’ s not about the innovative technology – it’ s about the people.’
BRIDGING THE GAP‘ I’ m going to talk about bridging a nursing capacity gap, but it could just as easily be about outreach workers, community services, or a needle exchange bus,’ said Catherine Comiskey, professor of healthcare modelling, global addiction and transformation at Trinity College Dublin’ s School of Nursing and Midwifery.‘ It’ s a widely applicable approach.’
Her team‘ didn’ t know we were going to use innovation,’ she said.‘ We just knew there was a problem that needed to be solved.’ Although very highly regarded, the Dublinbased nursing practice she worked with had always been reactive –‘ just dealing with what’ s coming through the door, as you often do.’
She and her colleagues gremlin / iStock
18 • DRINK AND DRUGS NEWS • DEC 25 – JAN 26 WWW. DRINKANDDRUGSNEWS. COM