Brown Experts Advise Governor’s Overdose Task Force

The four prongs the Report centers its recommendations around are treatment, rescue, prevention, and recovery. Treatment requires making medication therapy for opioid addiction more widely available. Buprenorphine, a substitute opioid known by its trade name Suboxone, is available from fewer than 75 physicians in Rhode Island.  Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott MPH’11, director of the RI Department of Health, has said that the state should have about 750 buprenorphine prescribers. According to Brandon Marshall, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, “We need to help providers understand how opioid addiction can be treated effectively in the primary care setting.” In addition to increasing the number of doctors prescribing buprenorphine, and the number of patients they treat, the Report also recommends the development of medication-assisted  treatment delivery systems at emergency departments, hospitals, clinics, and drug treatment programs, as well as increased cross-institutional collaboration.

The rescue component of the recommendations calls for increasing the availability of naloxone. Naloxone saves lives by reversing the severe respiratory depression caused by opioids and can be administered by laypeople trained to identify and respond to overdose. Furthermore, laws, policies, and communication strategies that encourage people to seek help in an overdose emergency are a critical part of the rescue strategy.

In order to prevent opioid addiction in the first place, the report recommends keeping closer track of the prescribing and dispensing of certain prescription medications. Prevention efforts including educating physicians, clinics, and pharmacists on safer prescribing and providing aggressive safety messaging to patients are also recommended.

The Report’s recovery strategy includes a large-scale expansion of recovery coach reach and capacity. The State’s peer recovery services have not kept pace with the opioid epidemic and the report recommends doubling the number of recovery coaches statewide.

The plan also recommends creating an online dashboard to keep the public up to date with the group’s progress.  Marshall reports that, “Rhode Island was successful in obtaining a new grant from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). We were one of several states to receive this funding to identify new strategies to help prevent overdose deaths. That grant will fund the Dashboard, for example, an online platform which we’ll use to track our successes. So there is committed funding already to implement some of the recommendations.”

There is a long way to go however. Experts from the School of Public Health have helped to lay a foundation with their plan to address Rhode Island’s growing opioid crisis and to measure the success of their ambitious goals moving forward.