With Alcohol Abuse On The Rise, Could This Company's Virtual and Remote Rehabilitation Program Help?

For centuries, the consumption of alcoholic beverages has played an important social role in many cultures. While it can fuel excitement during personal moments or at gatherings, excessive use can be detrimental.

Like a tsunami, the increasing abuse of alcohol is inflicting irreparable damage on people, families, businesses and society, and the World Health Organization (WHO) couldn’t have broken it down any better.

• The harmful use of alcohol is a causal factor in more than 200 disease and injury conditions.
• Worldwide, 3 million deaths every year result from the harmful use of alcohol. This represents 5.3% of all deaths.
• Overall, 5.1% of global disease and injury is attributable to alcohol, as measured in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).
• Beyond health consequences, the harmful use of alcohol brings significant social and economic losses to individuals and society at large.
• Alcohol consumption causes death and disability relatively early in life. In people ages 20 to 39, approximately 13.5% of total deaths are attributable to alcohol.
• There is a causal relationship between harmful use of alcohol and a range of mental and behavioral disorders, other noncommunicable conditions and injuries.

Unfortunately, things may worsen as the global alcoholic beverages market continues to grow. The market reached a value of $1.5 trillion in 2021 and is expected to reach $1.7 trillion by 2027, exhibiting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.7% from 2022 to 2027.

Also, nearly half of all industrial accidents with injuries are alcohol-related, and 1-in-10 U.S. commercial drivers test positive for alcohol — the highest rate worldwide.

Although disturbing, alcohol abuse can be treated through medications, counseling by a healthcare professional or a detoxification program in a hospital or medical facility.

Aside from these options, companies like SOBR Safe Inc. SOBR, Honeywell International Inc. HON and Abbott Laboratories ABT have been advancing research and development into technologies that might be used to stem the tide of addiction and abuse.

SOBRsafe™, which has commercialized a noninvasive alcohol detection and identity verification system, reports trying to create alcohol-free environments to increase productivity and save lives.

The company launched scalable software for real-time, remote reporting and data management and SOBRcheck™, a rapid and hygienic, touch-based identity verification and alcohol monitoring and cloud-based reporting system.

The technology, capable of being deployed in several industries, is possibly transferable across innumerable form factors, including stationary access control, personal wearables and telematics integration.

This patent-pending alcohol monitoring solution is meant to help prevent intoxicated workers from taking the factory floor or a vehicle’s keys.

Alcohol Use Disorder Rehabilitation Program

To add to its growing list of products, SOBRsafe has launched SOBRsure™, an alcohol monitoring band for alcohol treatment programs.

The technology is intended to help accelerate intervention and increase recovery rates, potentially improving patient quality of life and decreasing the financial burden on insurers.

According to a release by the company, the band will be pioneered, in partnership with SOBRsafe, by North-Star Care, an innovative virtual reality treatment platform.

The agreement calls for an initial 1,150 white-label bands. North-Star intends to deploy them through the end of the year and anticipates up to 7,500 patients in the program's first year.

With unique touch-based and virtual reality technologies, SOBRsafe and North-Star say they are ushering in a new era of effective, patient-centered alcohol rehabilitation care.

The company reports that SOBRsure is a preventative alcohol monitoring system designed specifically for alcohol rehabilitation. The fitness-style, privacy-forward wearable alcohol monitoring band provides continuous remote reporting, geolocation and removal alerts.

For the first time, patients could now have a streamlined, modern solution to manage and monitor their progress and goals proactively, while telehealth professionals are provided with added insight into the optimal treatments needed — all virtually and all in real-time.

Could This Technology Help? 

Approximately 15 million Americans are experiencing alcohol use disorder (AUD), a component of the $38 billion addiction and substance rehabilitation industry in the U.S.

While insurance providers were projected to spend $280 billion across all substance abuse and mental health spending in 2020 — a $109 billion increase over the past 10 years — an estimated  90% of individuals with AUD deviate from their recovery plan within four years of treatment.

Therefore, breaking from the traditional rehabilitation model with the first entirely virtual AUD rehabilitation program, North-Star Care believes it could leverage digital technologies, including virtual reality, telehealth, wearable monitoring devices, pharmaco-genomic-based medical treatments and other evidence-based interventions, to improve treatment outcomes.

SOBRsure will now be added to this toolset, offering North-Star Care a new way to help patients with real-time monitoring, intervention and better-informed long-term treatment while maintaining the most stringent patient privacy and confidentiality.

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