ECRI Institute’s annual Top 10 Hospital C-suite Watch List is in, and a mobile app that addresses the U.S. opioid crisis made it to the number one spot. It's fitting, since more than 90 Americans die per day from an opioid overdose, according to the NIH.

“This year we selected a range of technologies and infrastructure issues hospital leaders and their teams are facing, will be facing, or should consider,” Diane C. Robertson, director of health technology assessment at ECRI, said in a statement.

The list provides information on the safety, efficacy and cost-effectiveness of these emerging technologies. ECRI develops this list every year so health care professionals can use it when making decisions regarding their capital planning programs and strategic initiatives.
Here is a complete list of the topics for 2018:

1. Pear Therapeutics’ reSET mobile app for addiction treatment — The FDA cleared this app in September as a prescription-only adjunct treatment for patients with substance use disorder. Pear Therapeutics claims that it almost doubled the rate of abstinence and increased retention in treatment, compared to standard face-to-face therapy in a clinical trial.

Another emerging technology in this field is a default prescription setting for the EMR. Penn Medicine researchers found that when the default quantity was set to 10 tablets, a smaller amount of opioid tablets were prescribed at two of their emergency departments.

2. Direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing — Zymo Research Corp.’s myDNAge Epigenetic Aging Clock test analyzes blood or urine samples to estimate a person’s biological age, which is compared to their chronological age. DNA Diagnostics Center offers several tests that analyze DNA and provide health-related instructions based on the genetic results.

If a patient receives uncertain results from these DTC genetic tests, that may increase the demand for follow-up services at hospitals and health care clinics. ECRI recommends forming a task force to educate front line staff on the downstream consequences of these tests and the questions they might expect from patients.

3. Acuity-adaptable rooms — Some hospitals are testing out the acuity-adaptable care delivery model, in which a patient remains in the same room from admission to discharge, regardless of their acuity level. They’re hoping this will reduce length of stay and costs, and improve care continuity, patient safety, and workflows.

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