UCLA Health Highlights PHI’s CA Bridge for Successfully Scaling Addiction Treatment Statewide

“A comprehensive study shows that California’s CA Bridge program has successfully implemented opioid use disorder treatment services across more than 80% of the state’s emergency departments, reaching over 165,000 patients and providing nearly 45,000 instances of buprenorphine treatment from July 2022 through December 2023 alone. The initiative proves that emergency departments can serve as a critical entry point for addiction care when provided with proper funding, training, and patient navigation support.

Why it matters

The opioid crisis continues to devastate communities across America, with emergency departments treating large numbers of people with opioid use disorder but most health systems failing to provide evidence-based addiction care. Nationally, only 5.7% to 11.5% of emergency department patients with opioid use disorder receive medications for opioid use disorder, life-saving medications that reduce overdose deaths and improve treatment outcomes. CA Bridge represents the largest state-based emergency department addiction treatment initiative in the United States, offering a potential roadmap for nationwide implementation.

What the study did

Researchers analyzed data from 252 California hospitals participating in CA Bridge from July 2022 through December 2023. The program provided hospitals with $120,000 in funding, technical assistance, and training to hire patient navigators, support clinical champions, and establish addiction treatment pathways. Using grant reporting data and California’s controlled substances prescribing database, researchers tracked patient navigator encounters, buprenorphine treatments, and subsequent care engagement across rural, urban, public, and private hospitals.

What they found

The program achieved remarkable reach and effectiveness:

• From June 2022 through December 2023 at CA Bridge participating hospitals:
  • Patient navigators engaged patients with opioid use disorders in over 165,671 emergency department visits.
  • Patient engagement at public hospitals was about 80% higher than public hospitals.
  • Provision of buprenorphine treatment at public hospitals was about 50% higher than private hospitals.
• In 2022, across all California EDs:
  • 119,271 people received a prescription for buprenorphine for treatment of opioid use disorder, of whom 5,150 people (4.3 percent) received that prescription from an emergency medicine clinician.
  • Among the 58,399 people receiving a first-time buprenorphine prescription, 5.3% were started by emergency clinicians.
  • There were 1,737 unique emergency clinician prescribers, with nearly 22% new to prescribing buprenorphine.
  • About 36% of patients who received an buprenorphine prescription in the emergency department had a follow-up prescription within 40 days.
  • Patients received a median 58 days of uninterrupted treatment within one month of receiving a buprenorphine in the emergency department.”

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Originally published by UCLA Health