The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will be to transform how substance use disorders (SUDs) are diagnosed, monitored and treated by creating an integrated technology platform for health care providers. One important application is the early detection of risky substance use behavior that, if treated in the beginning stages, will reduce the rate of fully developed SUDs. The research and development performed on this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will be key to creating a novel bio-sensor based approach to diagnosing, monitoring and treating substance abuse patients. The collected bio-sensor data can also inform treatment solutions to help address this tremendous problem, which affects millions of people, costs the US economy billions of dollars annually, and incurs a significant human cost in terms of lost lives, broken families, and unfulfilled potential. There is also strong demand for a robust solution in places where substance use detection and monitoring is mandated for safety reasons, including the court system and the military services, as well as occupations like air traffic controllers, pilots, train operators, truck drivers, bus drivers, and operators of heavy machinery.
The proposed project will focus on integrating biosensors with smartphone technology to detect, collect, transmit, store, and analyze relevant biodata and to push resulting behavior change instructions to the user. By establishing a connection between the sensors and a smartphone application we will report substance abuse treatment outcome data much more accurately than is currently possible via self-reporting. This system will address engineering, manufacturing, and calibration challenges of a highly accurate diagnostic tool. This technology bypasses the limitations of existing methods with a dramatically different approach. The technology aims to greatly simplify the process of SUD diagnosis and treatment by empowering health care providers to implement accurate data collection, early detection, and custom-tailored intervention within the context of any routine office visit. The proposed project will address the development of a substance use measuring biosensor and assess the sensor lifetime, stability, reproducibility, and sensitivity. It is intended to develop a biosensor that patients can wear for a period of time, that we can establish a meaningful connection between the sensor and the mobile application to replace self-reporting, and that concept support can be gained from broader representation of primary care physicians and major insurance companies
