Opioid-related harms and care impacts of conventional and AI-based prescription management strategies: insights from leveraging agent-based modeling and machine learning.

Introduction: Like its counterpart to the south, Canada ranks among the top five countries with the highest rates of opioid prescriptions. With many suffering from opioid use disorder first having encountered opioids prescription routes, practitioners and health systems have an enduring need to identify and effectively respond to the problematic use of opioid prescription. There are strong challenges to successfully addressing this need: importantly, the patterns of prescription fulfillment that signal opioid abuse can be subtle and difficult to recognize, and overzealous enforcement can deprive those with legitimate pain management needs the appropriate care.