Philadelphia is among the cities hit hardest by the opioid crisis. Medication-assisted treatment (MAT), particularly buprenorphine, is identified as “the gold standard of care” for opioid use disorder. Unfortunately, information on the availability of MAT is currently spread across multiple databases and search tools. Furthermore, many listings are outdated. Any given search thus risks both wasting time on options that no longer exist and leaving out good possibilities!
The MATchMapper project brings together scattered public data on MAT availability in the Philadelphia area so 1) referrers and treatment seekers can search a more comprehensive and accurate directory—with map—and 2) public-health departments can review and update frequently changing local data more conveniently.
To serve both sets of users, we have created a pipeline with Python scripts that retrieve and combine relevant data from several key sources (national, state, and local). We are refining this pipeline to coordinate automatic and manual updates and store the results in a PostgreSQL database. We are also building a Django app to manage the database and serve data to two sets of frontend interfaces—Finder and Editor—created with Figma, and to map MAT sites using an R Shiny app or Mapbox plugin.
Referrers and treatment seekers can use the Finder to search and filter the data on a variety of fields including specific treatments offered and insurance networks accepted.
February 2021:
We are nearing completion of a working prototype. Our next steps are to:
