Psychiatric News: How PHI’s CA Bridge is Fighting the Opioid Crisis in the ED

“In 2021, an estimated 2.5 million people had opioid use disorder (OUD), and only 22% of them received medications to treat it. The sheer scale of the opioid crisis fuels its continued growth, like a storm creating its own wind. “It expands and expands as new people are drawn in through social connections and networks,” said Andrew Herring, M.D., an emergency, pain, and addiction physician in Oakland.

The only viable solution, according to Herring, is one that can match that scale. “And the only reasonable intervention that we really have that can safely and pragmatically meet the scale of the need is buprenorphine,” said Herring, an attending emergency physician and associate director of research at Highland Hospital-Alameda Health System, where he also serves as medical director of the substance use disorder treatment program.

Though an opioid itself, buprenorphine is safe, has lower abuse potential compared with other opioids, and ensures greater safety in case of overdoses. It provides a reasonable path for the millions of people living with OUD to begin their transition away from the illicit market, Herring said.

But buprenorphine can’t be the solution if it doesn’t reach patients. Enter the CA Bridge program, which is conducting one of the largest efforts in the United States to encourage emergency clinicians to initiate buprenorphine when patients with OUD enter their emergency departments (EDs). CA Bridge is one component of the Bridge Center, a California organization founded by Herring, Aimee Moulin, M.D., and Arianna Campbell, D.M.Sc., M.P.H., PA-C, to integrate emergency care with community care and improve health equity.”

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Originally published by Psychiatric News