Hospital Incentive Program Found to Increase Buprenorphine Prescriptions for Patients With OUD

Pennsylvania patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) were more likely to receive a prescription for buprenorphine within 30 days of a visit to the emergency department (ED) if they were seen at a hospital participating in the state ’s Opioid Hospital Quality Improvement Program than those seen at a hospital that did not participate in this program. These findings are described in arecent report inJAMA Health Forum.“With surging rates of opioid overdose deaths, ED encounters present a crucial opportunity to engage patients with OUD treatment,” wrote Keisha T. Solomon, Ph.D., of Howard University and colleagues. “The [Opioid Hospital Quality Improvement Program] may be a new policy approach to expanding a ccess to evidence-based treatment for OUD across a diverse and large population of hospitals.”In response to high opioid overdose death rates, the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services in 2019 implemented the Opioid Hospital Quality Improvement Program —a statewide program that provides financial incentives to any hospital in the state that agreed to implement changes to increase the number of OUD patients who transition from the ED to follow-up OUD treatment, including buprenorphine.The researchers analyzed data on 17,428 adults (about 57% male) who were enrolled in Medicaid and were seen in an ED for an opioid-related cause (for example, opioid withdrawal or opioid overdose) between January 1, 2016, and December 31, 2020. The main outcome was patients ’ rec...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: buprenorphine emergency department hospital incentives JAMA Health Forum medication for OUD MOUD opioid use Pennsylvania substance use disorder Source Type: research