Expand ER & Healthcare Handoffs to Treatment

Return to Opioid Top-Level Strategy Map or ZOOM MAP - Improve Treatment & Enable Recovery for People with SUDs

 

Background

ER visits and hospitalizations due ot opioid overdose is high and rising. "Overall, ED visits (reported by 52 jurisdictions in 45 states) for suspected opioid overdoses increased 30 percent in the U.S., from July 2016 through September 2017."

More than 140,000 people visited an ER for overdoses nationwide between July 2016 and Sept. 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to a May 2018 article, "Most ER doctors stabilize patients and release them with little or no attempt to offer long-term treatment."

“Research shows that people who have had an overdose are more likely to have another. Emergency department education and post-overdose protocols, including providing naloxone and linking people to treatment, are critical needs,” said Alana Vivolo-Kantor, Ph.D., behavioral scientist in CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. “Data on opioid overdoses treated in emergency departments can inform timely, strategic, and coordinated response efforts in the community as well.”

Success Stories

The "warm handoff" model was pioneered in Rhode Island where all of the state’s emergency departments and hospitals were required to be state-certified to treat OUDs. The EDs must offer peer recovery support; prescribing the overdose reversal drug naloxone to at-risk patients; and offering MAT, including buprenorphine, in the ER or at a doctor’s office or treatment facility.  A study by Yale researchers found that opioid-addicted patients were more likely to get treatment and reduce opioid use long-term when started on medication-assisted treatment in the ER.https://www.centerforhealthjournalism.org/fellowships/projects/how-er-docs-could-play-key-role-fighting-opioid-epidemic 

 

Tools & Resources

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This white paper from HealthLeaders magazine, Recovery Begins in the ED, has good information. 

 

This 2018 report in the Annals of Emergency Medicine provides valuable details: Opportunities for Prevention and Intervention of Opioid Overdoses in the Emergency Department  

 

This webinar from March of 2018 goes into a lot of details on coordinating ER, Public Health and 

 

Scorecard Building

Potential Objective Details
Potential Measures and Data Sources
 

 

 

Potential Actions and Partners

 

Resources to Investigate

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