Emergency Rooms Getting Creative When Dealing with Opioid Addiction
A report recently published by the Bloomberg American Health Initiative and the Legal Action Center has indicated that despite the increasing rise in overdose-related fatalities along with the importance of addiction treatment in Emergency Rooms, most hospitals are lacking when it comes to the screening of patients for substance misuse. In addition, hospitals do not offer medications to patients that are designed and proven to treat the misuse of opioids. They are also not referring them to follow-up care after being discharged.
Emergency Rooms are Continually Failing Patients with Opioid Misuse Issues
The report found that an alarming number of patients indeed suffer a fatal overdose shortly after being discharged from hospital (within one year of visiting the emergency room). In less disturbing news, the report also found that an increasing number of health professionals and ERs are making changes to the way they deal with opioid addicts. New approaches are being developed that hopefully address the current failings associated with the opioid epidemic and a lack of treatment opportunities in emergency rooms.
“We know it’s possible because others have done it,” says Sika Yeboah-Sampong, one author of the report and an attorney with Legal Action Center. “You have a combination of levers and kinds of structures of how different cities, counties, states and even independent hospitals adopt these practices.”
Several Hospitals all Over the US are Changing the Way They Deal with Opioid-Affected Patients
One such treatment is known as the ‘CA Bridge’ program. This model is currently in use in about 130 hospitals all over California where people with opioid misuse issues are identified and offered medication. Patients may also be connected with a ‘navigator’ whose role it is to help them with their long-term recovery. Navigators are assigned as soon as a patient is placed on the CA Bridge program so that a more welcoming environment is created for them. This also gives emergency room staff increased opportunities to learn more about the nature of addiction.
If you are suffering from the effect of opioid misuse disorder and would like to get your life back on track, then contact us here at Advanced Rapid Detox. With our program we can flush your body of opioids completely, and in as little as three days. You will be under sedation in a controlled medical facility, so you will not have to go through the pain of withdrawal. To contact us, please call (800) 603-1813 or contact us online here.