{"id":31419,"date":"2018-11-13T12:39:02","date_gmt":"2018-11-13T17:39:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/u-s-department-of-health-and-human-services-using-open-innovation-to-fight-the-opioid-epidemic\/"},"modified":"2018-11-13T14:38:28","modified_gmt":"2018-11-13T19:38:28","slug":"u-s-department-of-health-and-human-services-using-open-innovation-to-fight-the-opioid-epidemic","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-rctom\/submission\/u-s-department-of-health-and-human-services-using-open-innovation-to-fight-the-opioid-epidemic\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Using Open Innovation to Fight the Opioid Epidemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Crowdsourcing is the government\u2019s way of saying, \u201cWe don\u2019t have all the answers.\u201d<\/em><\/strong> [1]<\/p>\n

In October 2017, President Trump officially declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency. In 2016 alone, 11 million Americans abused prescription painkillers, and over 64,000 people died of drug overdoses, more than four times the number of overdose deaths in 1999. [2] A McKinsey report suggested that most opioid misuse remains undiagnosed and that the crisis will likely worsen in the next few years. [3]<\/p>\n

Less than two months later, in December 2017, 300 data scientists, coders, and public health experts from around the country convened in Washington, DC to participate in a 24-hour code-a-thon hosted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and focused on fighting the opioid epidemic.<\/p>\n

Why Open Innovation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

To meet its mission of promoting the health, safety, and general wellbeing of all Americans, HHS is constantly trying to solve the healthcare industry’s biggest challenges. The urgency and magnitude of the opioid crisis only exacerbate the need for innovative solutions. Open innovation allows HHS to leverage the varied knowledge, skills, and experiences of individuals within the government, industry, and academia. Together, challenge participants can generate a larger volume and more diverse set of ideas than would be possible if HHS worked solely within the confines of the department.<\/p>\n

During the 24-hour opioid challenge, each of the 50 participating teams worked to create novel, data-driven solutions, thereby priming the product development funnel with potential solutions related to the prevention, treatment, and use of opioids. Winners of the $10,000 prizes included the Origami Innovations team from the student-led incubator at Yale University and The Opioid Prescriber Awareness Tool (OPAT) team, which drew on a member\u2019s experience as a pilot to create a tool that visualizes physicians\u2019 opioid prescription patterns. [4]<\/p>\n

These code-a-thons and innovation challenges allow the government to take a more agile approach to product development. Rather than wait until ideas are fully formed and products developed, HHS can get a sense of high-potential ideas early in the development process and work with teams to adapt their projects to meet the needs of the end-user, whether that be patients and their families, emergency medical technicians, physicians, or local governments. HHS also has the opportunity to provide teams with funding and resources that can help to turn their ideas into viable products.<\/p>\n

Promoting Innovation <\/strong><\/p>\n

Data silos and a lack of access to quality data can hinder innovation and limit the benefits of crowdsourcing. For its opioid code-a-thon, HHS overcame this challenge by releasing over 70 data sets from both the public and private sectors, including data from HHS and other federal agencies, such as the Departments of Labor, Commerce, Transportation, and Education, as well as data from several state and local governments. [5] In addition, HHS published a data brief that highlighted the types of data available and how the data could be linked to support research and development efforts. [6] Bruce Greenstein, the HHS Chief Technology Officer noted the significance of this action by stating, \u201creleasing this data is historic and, believe me, putting it together and opening data from within government is quite a challenge in itself.” [7]<\/p>\n

To encourage other federal agencies and organizations to hold similar code-a-thons, HHS published a toolkit and the HHS Competes Playbook. [8][9] These tools share best practices and offer guidance on how to plan and execute innovation challenges. Building upon lessons learned from last year\u2019s opioid code-a-thon, the University of California Institute for Prediction\u00a0Technology\u00a0hosted a hack-a-thon to generate solutions to the opioid crisis with a special emphasis on California. The challenge also served as part of a research study to understand if and how open innovation challenges can be used in response to public health crises. [10]<\/p>\n

What’s next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Going forward, HHS should consider coordinating with other federal agencies and continue developing partnerships with companies to support the later stages of the product development process. These open innovation challenges generate lots of ideas, but by partnering with other agencies and private sector organizations, HHS can ensure that high-quality ideas move through the product development process \u2013 from product definition to testing and launch readiness \u2013 in a safe and timely manner.<\/p>\n

Questions:<\/strong><\/p>\n