Article Excerpt: Phone apps can improve patient outcomes compared to standard treatment. Dr. Lisa Marsch, who directs the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health at Dartmouth College, described one randomized, controlled trial conducted with adults who met criteria for an opioid use disorder. All patients were offered buprenorphine to stabilize brain neurochemistry. Some patients also received individual counseling three times a week in one-on-one sessions. Other patients received standard treatment offered in outpatient treatment programs. And the remaining patients were paired with clinicians they checked in with every other week while getting the bulk of their treatment through interactive software. The results? The three-times-a-week treatment and the digital treatment were essentially the same – and both were better than the standard treatment that people generally get in outpatient treatment programs. “There is now a pretty substantive literature that shows that digital treatments can produce outcomes that are as good as – or sometimes better than – clinician-delivered treatments,” Marsch said.
Full Article: https://tinyurl.com/3c8bmpnt
Article Source: National Press Foundation