Addiction Treatment Centers
Leave it to California to take the lead when it comes to a group of hospitals trying a new way of helping those addicted to opioids—having ERs administer buprenorphine (aka Suboxone) when someone enters in the throes of withdrawal. (Lest anyone forget, buprenorphine is weaker than other opioids. It activates “the same receptors as other opioids, but doesn’t cause a high if taken as prescribed,” says the article in The New York Times.) A 2015 study by researchers at Yale-New Haven Hospital found that when ERs have done this, the people who get the buprenorphine are more likely (twice as likely, in fact) to be in treatment after a month than people who were only given an informational packet that included phone numbers related to treatment. As a result of the study, an ER specialist who heads the buprenorphine program at Highland Hospital in Oakland convinced the California Health Care Foundation to give his hospital a grant to try the novel method.
ER Departments
Out of the box idea? Sure. But it seems to be working. Now ER doctors are calling the lead author of the study every week, she said in August, and ER departments in Camden, NJ, Brunswick, Maine, Philadelphia, New York, Syracuse, and Boston are also offering buprenorphine.The doctors need training to prescribe the medication, as well as a license from the DEA to prescribe it unless someone is in withdrawal, so ER doctors are in a good position to treat those patients. “I think we’re at the stage now where emergency docs are saying, ‘I’ve got to do something,’” the lead author of the study said. “They’re beyond thinking they can just be a revolving door.”
Treatment in the ER
It’s a rare opportunity to meet people where they need help and get them started on medication for their addiction, the article notes. In some places of the country, it’s not easy to find a doctor who takes insurance AND prescribes buprenorphine. After their ER visit, ideally a person will follow a “wheel and spoke” approach, where they first go to a treatment clinic (the hub), adjust to the medication, and then see a doctor in a primary practice (the spoke). Treatment in the ER involves buprenorphine under the tongue, and usually, a prescription for Suboxone, in the form of strips that will dissolve in the mouth and thus are harder to abuse. Then the person is directed to meet with the head of the addiction program in his clinic, where he’s available one day a week.
Detox Centers
Even signs posted in the waiting area of Highland ER reaching out to those suffering from opioid use disorder are helping. A woman there for a respiratory infection saw one and told her brother about the signs, and he decided to enter the program. Recently released from prison, he was hoping to stay clean, especially because he had a job offer. Now he had “a stable source of treatment.” California was willing to provide the grants to have this program flourish. Two-thirds of Highland Hospital’s 375 patients in withdrawal accepted the medication and had an initial appointment at its addiction clinic. Not only that, but California has started to require detox centers and residential centers to allow residents to take either buprenorphine or methadone, medication-assisted treatment, which has had a history of controversy. That’s also ground-breaking.
For more information or to contact our Detox Centers in the Bay Area call (866) 596-9391.
