Taking Healthcare by Storm: Industry Insights with Randy Polito

In this captivating episode of Taking Healthcare by Storm, delve into the world of expert insights as Quality Insights Medical Director Dr. Jean Storm engages in a thought-provoking and informative discussion with Randy Polito, a Customer Success Consultant at CHESS Health.

• Connections App – West Virginia Public
• CHESS Connections App: Explainer Video 
• Companion App – West Virginia Public

If you have any topics or guests you'd like to see on future episodes, reach out to us on our website. 

This material was prepared by Quality Insights, a Quality Innovation Network-Quality Improvement Organization under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Views expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the official views or policy of CMS or HHS, and any reference to a specific product or entity herein does not constitute endorsement of that product or entity by CMS or HHS. Publication number 12SOW-QI-GEN-082324-GK

Transcript

Welcome to Taking Healthcare by Storm, Industry Insights, the podcast that delves into the captivating intersection of innovation, science, compassion, and care.

In each episode, Quality Insights Medical Director, Dr.

Jean Storm, will have the privilege of engaging with leading experts across diverse fields, including dieticians, pharmacists, and brave patients navigating their own healthcare journeys.

Our mission is to bring you the best healthcare insights, drawing from the expertise of professionals across West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the nation.

Subscribe now, and together, we can take healthcare by storm.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Taking Healthcare by Storm.

I am Dr.

Jean Storm, the Medical Director of Quality Insights.

And if you have listened to any past episodes, you know that opioid use disorder has a special place in my heart.

It is a big challenge in West Virginia.

So today, we are talking about an innovative solution to help people stay in recovery.

Because we know we can treat people for opioid use disorder, but one of the main challenges is really helping individuals and providing support for them to stay in recovery.

So today, we are joined by Randy Polito from CHESS Health, and we're going to be talking about an innovative solution to opioid use disorder, and it's called the Connections app, and we're going to be talking about the place that it's going to, the role it's going to play in West Virginia.

So, Randy, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm very glad to be here.

Great.

So tell us a little bit about CHESS Health.

What is CHESS Health?

Sure.

So CHESS Health, we are a digital health care company with peers, and we have multiple online solutions designed to help individuals who are in recovery stay in recovery.

People who are maybe still in active addiction with substance use disorder, who haven't kind of gotten into any kind of care, help them find care, help them learn more about their mental health, their relationships with drugs and alcohol.

Everything that we do is evidence-based.

And so we're really working hard to get people connected to care and help people live more happy, meaningful, productive lives.

Yeah, it's such an important initiative.

And I think we need more of that in this country, especially in West Virginia.

For sure.

So, you're talking about West Virginia.

Why do you feel that opioid use disorder remains such a challenge in this country, especially in states like West Virginia?

Well, that's obviously a big question with a lot of answers.

You know, I think, you know, one of the things that's really overlooked is, you know, this medication, what it was designed for, what it's used for, is still commonly used every single day in a variety of settings legally, right?

And so, I think you're getting new individuals, maybe, who've never interacted with a substance, introduced to a substance, that might not be the best for them.

And then, you know, obviously you see it in the news every single day that, you know, people who might not realize that they're using an opioid are using an opioid because maybe they're self-medicating, maybe they're progressing in their disease and moving to substances that might be, for lack of a better term, like harder, more aggressive.

And you know, I don't think anyone is setting out to do this on purpose, but it happens.

And then, you know, obviously, you know that there's just so many societal factors that go into substance use disorder and opioid use disorder and, and, you know, why people take that first pill that might be the, you know, the last first pill they take.

So, yeah, it's, it's a really, it's a really challenging thing.

And I would agree with you.

I don't think many people understand when they start taking opioids, the, the risk that they are undertaking.

So do you think that opioid use disorder has become more challenging, you know, with the pandemic and since the pandemic?

Absolutely.

You know, it seems, you know, thankfully, we've kind of gotten a handle on the, that first wave of the pill mills and the unscrupulous prescribing of medicine and those things.

And, but with that kind of second wave of illegal synthetic opioid counterfeit pills that have been infiltrating, you know, neighborhoods all across the country, not just in West Virginia, but, so that the access is there, for sure, unregulated, unfiltered.

But then with terms of that pandemic, just the lack of connection, the irregularity, the not being able to maybe go to the 12-step group that you used to be a part of pre-pandemic that met every Tuesday night just around the corner from you.

Maybe that meeting doesn't exist anymore.

Maybe, you know, just for a myriad of reasons, people's lives were upset, the routine was upset, the connections were interrupted.

And really, when it comes to substance use disorder, what's the famous line?

The opposite of addiction is connection.

And when your connection is interrupted, you know, and you're there alone and you don't have the support group, you don't have the reassurance of, you know, your tribe, as they say, that maybe, you know, turning back towards substances is what you feel is the only way to cope.

You know, thankfully, we're a bit removed from the pandemic and things have, you know, moved, trended back towards that normalcy, but, you know, the damage done during that year and a half, two years is going to take a long time to reverse.

Yeah, I agree.

And so, you know, kind of jumping off from that, you know, that we need, you know, connection.

What role did digital tools play in the prevention of opioid use disorder?

Yeah, so whether it's coincidence, divine intervention, serendipity, CHESS Health had been working with WVU Health Affairs about getting our Connections app offered in the state of West Virginia right at about the time the pandemic hit and things started closing.

So it ramped up incredibly fast spring of 2020.

The state purchased our app, the Connections app through their SOAR grant to provide this digital solution.

So the Connections app is free for any resident of West Virginia.

It has been since 2020.

And all those things that we just talked about in terms of the isolation, the being disconnected, the not having the resources, the tribe, all of that kind of gets erased by the app because all you have to do is reach in to your back pocket, pull out your phone, and the Connections app will connect you to a community of individuals in recovery, licensed peer specialists that can provide you with support and guidance.

There's live recovery meetings in the app, there's communities to engage in, there's a bunch of other recovery tools and recovery support systems in the app.

So, when you don't have the transportation to go somewhere, or that meeting that you used to go to on Tuesday night is closed down because the building isn't open anymore, you're able to maintain that consistency of recovery online, which is, I think, pretty special.

Oh, so valuable.

So not only are...

I mean, it's amazing.

I want to talk about the SOAR grant or the state opioid response in a little bit, but I think it's just amazing that every individual in West Virginia has access to this app.

So, you know, we're talking about prevention, but just the role that it plays in recovery, you know, is so helpful.

Like, you can imagine if somebody is traveling to see family and they really feel the need to get some support, the app is there, or, you know, they maybe can look for a local resource, you know, where they're traveling.

Like, that is, that's amazing.

Right, exactly.

And so, you know, we work with a bunch of different providers across the state.

And what you just mentioned with travel, we have a day report center where their counselors will make it a requirement if someone is traveling, that they use our app to stay connected so they know kind of how they're doing, not what they're doing or where they are, but just are you okay, are you on track?

Are you handling being with a good crowd in a new place?

So it really does safely keep that line of communication going between provider and participant.

So I talk a lot, I've talked to a lot of individuals about treatment of opioid use disorder.

Do you feel there's still a lot of barriers for individuals to receive treatment?

There absolutely can be.

It's gotten better for some, but it is still seemingly out of reach for others, whether that's the truth or whether that's just how they feel.

Obviously, there's always the talk about stigma.

But there are just so many factors that might pop up in the way of an individual wanting to find that treatment.

It's a small window.

When someone's ready for recovery or they hit a point of wanting to get into a program, it's not like you can just walk in the front door of any building and say, hey, I'm ready.

And then they just sweep you in and give you the magic pill.

Or I see there's access due to health care coverage, insurances, maybe support the people around you.

They might not be ready for you to get better and want to kind of keep you with them.

And whether it be...

I used to work for a very large national treatment provider, and it would always be frustrating when somebody would be coming out of a hospital, or somebody would call you a couple weeks after they had an overdose, and they were getting ready to...

They were ready to make the commitment to go into treatment, and then you'd have to tell them, well, it's been too long since you used last, so your insurance isn't going to pay for you to be here.

Best we can do is just give you a list of local meetings, and good luck to you.

And as you probably know, and most people know that that's not really how substance use disorder works, just because you...

Coming out of incarceration would be the same thing, just because you've been incarcerated for nine months doesn't mean that within those nine months, you're all of a sudden cured from substance use disorder, and you can just go about your life.

So there definitely are a lot of barriers.

Hopefully, we can continue to work to break them down and kind of give more equitable access.

Yeah.

It's interesting because I feel like that's a unique difficulty for someone in recovery.

You specified, maybe they're in a location where you said they were incarcerated or maybe they're in a long-term care facility, they don't have access to medications, and then they're discharged, they return out to the community and they're back in that situation where they're being exposed to all these substances that they have been free from for so long, and they feel like they maybe want to use again.

And I can imagine that the Connections app helps with that, because it's like a little bit of a support to keep them in recovery.

Sure, absolutely.

Our team of peers, they're absolutely dedicated to what they do, and they're in that app 24-7.

So if somebody's outside of the treatment system, for lack of a better term, they're still going to have our peers there to engage with, and we have multiple peers that reside inside the state of West Virginia, and they're very well connected.

So kind of know the right direction to point people in, and we have so many providers.

I think, last count, we were pushing 100 providers across the state or work with us in some way, shape or form.

So those local relationships that we have, we're kind of able to get people in front of the boots on the ground that can help.

That's so important.

So tell us about the state opioid response grant, so the SOAR grant, and what that means for the residents of West Virginia, and how they can gain access to the connections app.

So the SOAR grant in West Virginia state opioid response, they have a large pool of money that funds a lot of different programs.

So it funds, whether it's contingency management and inside different providers, the peers in jails are funded by a SOAR grant.

And we are one of just, like I said, a slew of programs that use SOAR grant funds.

So the state took a block of money, and they purchased our eRecovery, our connections app.

And what that means is that every single individual across the state, whether they are in a treatment program, whether they are just on the couch, whether they are just moved in, or they're just temporarily passing through, can download this app and be connected to all the tools and resources completely for free.

Typically, the way our company works, we partner with providers.

And so, your MAT clinic might have the app, but the one next door doesn't.

So those laws are torn down in West Virginia.

Everybody has open access to this app.

Everybody has the ability to use the tools, the functions, have that peer support, be connected to crisis care when they need it completely for free.

And then, kind of, as an addition to that, and, you know, I think we're going to talk about it maybe a little bit later on, but the state of West Virginia did something huge with their grant this year, and they paid for the development of our companion app, which is a tool for friends, family, loved ones, caregivers of individuals with substance use disorder or mental health diagnosis.

So a tool that can be used by mom and dad, by husband, wife, brother, sister, to learn more about substance use, to get some support, to be better partners and caregivers.

That came from you.

That came from West Virginia.

I think that's so special that they had the forethought and the foresight to do that.

It doesn't exist anywhere else, and now it's going to exist for people all across the country because of you.

Yeah, I think that's so important.

I was going to ask you about the companion app.

That was actually the next and last question I was going to ask you.

But I love that companion app.

Now, is it available?

It's available now?

It is.

We just got the go ahead to release it.

We've set it out to the first few agencies in the state.

I just met with the West Virginia perinatal group last week.

I've been meeting with reentry councils.

The NAMI group out of Wheeling has access to it.

So actually, I don't know how this could work or would work, but I'd be happy to send the link over if it could, for the connections and the companion app to be posted, that individuals can sign up if they'd like to join and get that support.

It's out there for everybody, for sure.

Absolutely.

That's what I was going to ask you.

I was going to ask you how individuals find out more information.

Can you just tell the listeners the website, and then when this gets published, we'll post the links.

Sure.

So all the information somebody might need about us is on our website, CHESS.Health.

They can look up.

We are evidence-based.

We are a health care company, even though the apps that we talk about kind of border on the line of a social media, that is not what we are.

We are definitely a health care company.

And so on CHESS.Health, there are some educational tools on our different resources.

There are some outcome studies.

There are some case studies.

There are some blog posts.

Actually, some of them centered around West Virginia and the Day Report Centers.

You can find information on the Help and Hope West Virginia website.

If you go to helpandhopewv.org and scroll down the page, you'll see a little Connections for Recovery.

Blurred there, you can sign up.

You can watch a video to learn more about the tools that are in the app.

Everything is there as well.

Excellent.

I encourage everyone to, if you need help, if you are interested in the Connections app and now the Companion app, because I feel like everyone has touched by opioid use disorder.

Please reach out and we'll have those links in the podcast platform.

Randy, thank you so much for joining us.

Oh, I'm so happy to be here.

Thank you.

And I encourage everyone to hop on the Connections or the Companion app and learn more about what they can do to support recovery.

Excellent.

Thank you so much.

Bye-bye.

Thank you for tuning in to Taking Healthcare by Storm, Industry Insights with Quality Insights Medical Director, Dr.

Jean Storm.

We hope that you enjoyed this episode.

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If you have any topics or guests you'd like to see on future episodes, you can reach out to us on our website.

We would love to hear from you.

So until next time, stay curious, stay compassionate and keep taking healthcare by storm.