Common enemy: The opioid epidemic has tech, community and entrepreneurial foes banding together

Standing in the center of all of this parallel play between startups and big corporations and governmental agencies and health care providers is Gary M. Winzenread, chief executive officer and president of Cordata Healthcare Innovations, a Cincinnati-based health-tech startup that specializes in software applications for effective patient management around various treatments, including spine and oncology. Winzenread and his Cordata teams are supplying multiple quick response teams (QRTs) with software applications, including a mobile app to provide essential data to first responders. So far, the collaborations with governmental agencies -- including Colerain Township and its Public Safety Director, Daniel P. Meloy; and Interact for Health, a catalyst for improved health and wellness via grants, education and public policy for the people of the Cincinnati region -- have been positive and powerful. "I think every interaction that's person-to-person is ideal," Winzenread said. "The emails and pings, well, those things can happen automatically. It's important to increase the social touches with professionals and remind them that they are part of a caring community that sees them as people." A mobile app used by first responders is just one part of the SaaS (software as a service) applications being designed, built and implemented by Cordata. Cordata creates a record that provides first responders with context and information about the OD victims they are aiding. Then, the data helps the QRT teams reach out to these survivors and match OD victims with nearby care and treatment. Finally, Cordata documents and provides analysis of this information regarding service trends and efficacy to the communities they serve. True to its collaborative mission, Cordata also makes sure the data is available to all players in health care, public safety, governmental agencies, health tech companies and med tech startups. "The application is built on a framework that relates caregivers, tests, procedures, appointments, locations, care team members, pathways, outcomes, patients and the like to enable positive support for a patient going through a long-term, complex treatment," Winzenread said. "As we became involved in supporting early responders and treatment facilities in this space, all we did was configure these pathways, procedures and the like to focus on treatment for opiate addiction."