Addiction treatment in Dayton, Ohio has recently gained a new app that will help patients find the right drug treatment services in Montgomery County.
Preliminary data indicated 75 drug-related overdose deaths already occured in Montgomery County this year — 38 were in Dayton, according to Dayton and Montgomery County Public Records. In 2017, there were 566 deaths in Montgomery County and 282 in Dayton.
The app, called GetHelpNow, helps people quickly find addiction treatment services whenever they need it.
“The long-term goal is to help reduce overdose deaths by encouraging the use of the support channels within our community,” said Jordan Doczy, the developer of GetHelpNow and director of digital marketing and digital services at Ascend Innovations. “Viewing this initial release as a pilot, our goal is to refine the application to meet the needs of the community and then begin focusing on rolling out to other counties throughout the state.”
The app was created by Ascend Innovations, an union between the Kettering Health Network, Dayton Children’s Hospital and Premier Health Partners. Ascend’s services all have one objective: to advance healthcare that improves the lives of patients.
“The concept arose after realizing the difficulty in finding support for addiction and mental health issues,” Doczy said. “We wanted to simplify the process by creating a centralized curated list of providers within our county that offered specific services to these conditions.”
Compatible with iPhones or Androids, the app was acquired by the Montgomery County, Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services (ADAMHS), which uses a network of service providers around the county.
The ADAMHS is in charge of planning and monitoring all services related to drug and alcohol addiction treatment. They are one of 50 boards directing Ohio’s public health system and ensuring that people have access to addiction treatment services.
The vision of ADAMHS is to endorse wellness and healing that strengthens and maintains healthy people and families without the stigma attached to addiction and mental illness. Their purpose is to give public guidance in preparing, creating and maintaining great quality mental health and addiction treatment.
The app cost the ADAMHS $100,000, with funds coming from the Human Services Levy Review Board. It is the first of its kind that not only lists the addiction treatment centers but also enables directions to the facilities by the zip code.
GetHelpNow also includes the various types of services that each addiction treatment center offers.
“The [development] process involved performing an audit of each provider in the area to understand the types of services they offer,” Doczy said. “We then distilled that information into easy to digest categories to make navigating the app simple and intuitive.”
The four areas that the app covers… (Continue Reading)
Author: Robert B. Hayek
Robert B Hayek is a reporter for Addiction Now and covers features and local spotlight stories. He previously worked for Fox Sports as a production assistant as well as a writer and reporter for an online website called Real Talk Sports Network. He has lived in Southern California his entire life, is a lover of books and writing and also surfs. Contact Robert at roberth@addictionnow.com
