Cindy Parks Thomas

Opioid-related morbidity and overdose deaths continue to be a significant public health problem. For individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD), the emergency department (ED) is a critical entry point to potentially access treatment. A growing strategy to improve access to care for OUD and other substance use disorders (SUD) is through the ED, with several hundred programs estimated to be in place. This study examined several models of ED-based interventions for OUD, identifying key features, population served, metrics for assessing effectiveness, barriers to, and facilitators of success, and lessons for future programs.

Opioid-related morbidity and overdose deaths continue to be a significant public health problem, exacerbated by COVID-19. For individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD), the emergency department (ED) is a critical entry point to potentially access treatment. A growing strategy to improve access to care for OUD and other substance use disorders (SUD) is through the ED, with hundreds of programs estimated to be in place nationally. Individual program reports are emerging, but there is little systematic research regarding what contributes success and how to measure it. This study examined several models of ED-based interventions for OUD, identifying key features, population served, metrics for assessing effectiveness, barriers and facilitators of success, and lessons for future programs.