Improving Chronic Pain Patient Outcomes Through Innovative Chronic Pain Management
Description of the Project
The project aims to improve chronic pain treatment by further studying and expanding Allevio’s multidisciplinary practice while improving the accessibility of pain specialists to Canadians through an innovative virtual and remote care platform.
Designing and examining the efficacy of an app-based platform that connects chronic pain patients to specialists that use an integrated approach to treat chronic pain (i.e. Lidocaine-Ketamine infusions, manual therapy, psychotherapy, and mindfulness).
Brief Description of the Applicant
Allevio Answers is the research branch of the Allevio Pain Management clinic in Toronto, Ontario. Our vision is to be on the cutting edge of comprehensive pain management solutions by combining pain treatment and research, with the aim of relieving pain-related suffering. We are dedicated to the advancement of our collective knowledge about pain through innovative research, with a keen focus on patient-centric treatment interventions.
Brief Summary of the
Applicant’s Primary Business Activities
Allevio Pain Management clinic in Toronto, Ontario hosts a multidisciplinary team of pain specialists who work collaboratively to address the complex disease of chronic pain. We have always focused on patient advocacy and integrating our research and training with clinical services. We approach chronic pain management in a way that combines the best of both evidence-based medical practice and traditional holistic approaches to healing and wellness. Treatment at Allevio is comprehensive and patient-centric.
Applicant’s Major Technical
Achievements in the Past 3 Years
Allevio Answers’ core purpose is innovative research with a keen interest in not only reducing our patients’ symptoms of chronic pain but their overall quality of life. Over the past 3 years, Allevio has championed the cause of opioid reduction among pain patients through novel multidisciplinary research. Allevio has conducted one of the largest retrospective studies on ketamine-lidocaine infusions as a treatment for pain, which has shown promising results. The study examined over 170 chronic pain patients undergoing a ketamine-lidocaine infusion protocol over a treatment period of 36 weeks. Allevio has treated over 10,000 chronic pain patients over the last 3 years. The overwhelming majority of Allevio patients experienced reductions in pain, improvements to their mood and quality of life. Most patients (~70%), who were using opioid narcotic painkillers, reduced their opioid use with many patients (~25%) completely ceasing opioid use. Allevio has also begun development and beta testing of a mobile phone app-based patient access portal that empowers patients to take ownership of their treatment by allowing them to manage their chronic pain treatment plan at Allevio. Development of this app is the first step towards increasing patient access to chronic pain specialists across the country and globally, as Allevio sets its sights on expanding the patient access portal app to include virtual care and remote treatment.
Brief Biographical
Summary of Key Management Staff
Ross Hendin, Chief Executive Officer: Imrat Sohanpal, Chief Medical Officer and Anesthesiologist: Michael McDonnell, Controller: Ramin Safakish, Anesthesiologist: Shadi Babazadeh, Clinical Research Lead: Simon Chan, Research Director: Vahid Yazdani, Digital Transformation Project Manager:
Minimizing Environmental Footprint
Although reducing carbon emissions is not the primary mission of Allevio, one incidental impact of Allevio’s proposed virtual and remote care treatment platform is the minimization of carbon emissions by reducing and sometimes eliminating the necessity of patients to travel, often large distances, to access chronic pain specialists.
Description of the Project
Chronic pain affects a third of all Canadians at an immense cost to both the individual and society. Chronic pain disproportionately afflicts older adults and as advances in medical science has greatly increased and continues to increase life-expectancy, the number of Canadians affected by chronic pain is rising at an alarming rate. The he aim of the project titled: “Improving Chronic Pain Patient Outcomes Through Innovative Chronic Pain Management, Facilitated by Technology-Driven Access to Physicians that Specialize in an Integrated Non-Opiate Approach to Chronic Pain Management” is exactly that. The project aims to improve chronic pain treatment utilizing a multifaceted approach; by further studying and expanding upon the promising results of Allevio’s multidisciplinary practice while concurrently increasing and improving accessibility of chronic pain specialists to all Canadians via development and implementation of an innovative virtual and remote care platform. First, the proposed project will conduct one of the largest and most comprehensive studies on the outcomes and efficacy of a non-opioid integrated multidisciplinary approach to pain management, with therapies including lidocaine-ketamine infusions, radio-frequency ablations, nerve blocks, manual therapy, psychotherapy, mindfulness training, etc. This approach has demonstrated promising results in prior studies, such as pain reduction, reductions in opiate use, and improvements to quality of life, but the long-term efficacy of such an approach has not been studied. The second component of the project aims to improve access to chronic pain specialists by designing and launching an app-based virtual and remote care platform. The platform will allow chronic pain specialists the ability to oversee and guide the treatment interventions of Canadians in remote or underserved communities. Additionally, chronic pain often limits the patient’s mobility, thereby restricting their ability to seek effective treatments that will enable the patient to obtain the best possible outcomes. Studies have demonstrated that narcotics and opioids are utilized unnecessarily and far too often, leading to the current opioid crisis. When patients aren’t provided the proper tools and treatments in a timely and efficient manner to manage their chronic pain, opioids are often utilized as a band aid or immediate fix. This proposed project has the potential to dramatically change the pain management landscape, away from narcotics and opioids and into a treatment model that will greatly help Canadians suffering from chronic pain, increase accessibility of pain specialists to all Canadians, while reducing the burden on the health care system.