How PHI’s CA Bridge is Pioneering Emergency Department Addiction Care

“New research posits that emergency departments may provide a key setting to get people with opioid use disorders (OUDs) into treatment at scale, potentially driving up the dismally low number of people with such diagnoses accessing treatment.

An examination of the CA Bridge program and other data from California reveals that the implementation of this state-backed, in-emergency-room program led to a median of 58 days of uninterrupted treatment. Additionally, the program offers a potential gateway to tens of thousands of patients across the state.

“CA Bridge has helped transform emergency care throughout California to include low-barrier buprenorphine for OUD. The program has developed a successful model for scaling ED addiction care across diverse practice settings, with high adoption and service provision,” the study reads.

Between July 2022 and December 2023, the CA Bridge program provided 165,671 patient navigator encounters and 44,996 buprenorphine treatments at the 252 participating hospital emergency departments.

Under the CA Bridge program, hospitals receive funding and assistance from the state to maintain emergency department buprenorphine prescribing and patient navigation programs, which help patients connect to outpatient care and access take-home naloxone.

About 49% of the buprenorphine prescriptions made in the emergency department were for patients’ first buprenorphine prescription. About 36% of patients who initiated a buprenorphine prescription in that setting fill a second. However, well more than half, 73%, were written by nonemergency room providers.

The study demonstrates the opportunity for additional OUD work to be provided in hospitals, a setting that does not usually have dedicated resources and competency for most behavioral health issues.”

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Originally published by Behavioral Health Business