Tuesday, May 13, 2025
5/13/2025
Opioid Peer Emergency Navigation to Accessing Comprehensive Care and Engaging Specialized Services (OPEN ACCESS) - The Opioid Peer Emergency Navigation to Accessing Comprehensive Care and Engaging Specialized Services (OPEN ACCESS) project will serve the residents of Newark, NJ. Newark has seen high numbers of deaths related to opioid overdose, and high rates of HIV related to injection drug use. Many individuals seeking substance abuse treatment in Newark are uninsured, and the availability of medication-assisted treatment (MAT) is lower than in the rest of New Jersey. The OPEN ACCESS program will meet patients in the emergency department (ED) at University Hospital (UH) in Newark, focusing on individuals with complications of opioid use, such as overdose, withdrawal, or HIV transmission. We will offer peer counseling, healthcare navigation, take-home naloxone, and buprenorphine initiation when appropriate, while the individual is still in the ED. We will offer referral to appropriate medical and addiction services offered through a collaboration between different Rutgers New Jersey Medical School departments, including departments of Emergency Medicine, Infectious Disease, Internal Medicine, and Psychiatry. Grant support will help us ensure that the following services are available to patients immediately, regardless of insurance status at the time of initiation into the program: MAT services, take-home naloxone, HIV care, addiction counseling, peer counseling, financial counseling, meditation training, social work case management and referral to other medical and addiction services as needed. In order to extend our capacity to offer services in a resource-limited setting, we will offer addiction services via telemedicine, especially for individuals with limited mobility due to disability or transportation limitation. We will also offer an evidence-based, computerized cognitive behavioral therapy intervention. We will engage in ongoing quality improvement using the plan-do-study-act model to evaluate and improve the OPEN ACCESS program. We will offer education and referral to at least 900 patients with complications of opioid use disorder from the ED, with a goal of linkage to care of 35% in the first year, 40% in the second year, and 45% in the third year of grant funding. We expect to link at least 360 patients to MAT services, and to retain 80% of these patients in services.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).