Podcast: Harnessing the Potential of Medically Assisted Treatment for Opioid Addicts

Written By: Joe Demski

May 10, 2022

3 min read

Since 2019, Chief Innovation Officer for the City of Paterson, New Jersey, Ed Boze has been working tirelessly to implement solutions to help his community overcome its challenges and reignite the spirit of prosperity and innovation it was once known for around the world.

A former high-achieving c-suite tech executive and founder, this current public servant has a tenacity for leveraging technology to improve public health, solve problems around how opioid addiction and treatment is handled in Paterson, and drive more cost effective health operations for his community.

In this episode of GovTech Talks, listen as we sit down with Ed Boze, Chief Innovation Officer for the City of Paterson, NJ to discuss his experience, aspirations, challenges, and inspirations that led him to apply for and win the Bloomberg Global Mayors Challenge and $1M for his program.

Uncovering New Insights in Public Health Datasets in Paterson, New Jersey

The city of Paterson, New Jersey is currently one of America’s most densely populated urban centers. With a population of 160,000 spread across just 8 square miles, Paterson is an urban center that once teemed with activity generating vast economic prosperity and security for the working families who helped this town and country seat to become one of America's fastest growing economic centers during the 19th century. Back then, the growing town of Paterson earned the nickname “Silk City'' in reference to the local silk production which made the city a household name in many parts of the world.

As the Chief Innovation Officer of Paterson, NJ, Edward Boze applied for and won the Bloomberg Global Mayors Challenge and one of 15 $1M grants. Ed’s proposal outlined RealFix, which breaks the hold of addiction, providing Appropriate Medication-Assisted-Treatment Anytime Anywhere (AMATAA) faster and easier than obtaining illicit opioids, in 90 minutes or less to be exact. Bloomberg recognized this as a solutions that can scale to solve a nationwide problem, opioid addiction.

In this episode of GovTech Talks, be sure to listen to these key moments:

From 3:45-10:18 - learn more about the unique challenges Boze is facing and the hand’s on approach his team is taking to generating meaningful data to address the epidemic opioid crisis
From 16:55-18:25 - find out more about how government officials leverage technology to resolve public sector challenges
From 18:25-22:29 - listen to how Boze developed a new software application tool for working with sensitive public sector data
From 30:15-32:44 - hear how Quickbase delivered the agility needed to quickly develop safe, effective, and secure applications for improving governance processes

Be sure to tune into this episode of GovTech Talks to learn more about how Boze and his team that won the Bloomberg Mayor's Challenge and is helping his community make better use of technology to help address issues of homelessness and addiction that impact so many lives across our nation.