Symposium: Innovations in Telehealth for Opioid Use Disorder Treatment: Enhancing Access and Quality of Care

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic precipitated a rapid expansion in telehealth-delivered care which is likely to leave a permanent mark on how opioid use disorder (OUD) care is delivered. Policymakers are currently debating what telehealth policies for OUD should look like in the future with recently proposed regulations by the DEA requiring changes to what has been allowed during the public health emergency. This symposium aims to inform clinical practices and policy debates on improving access and quality of OUD care in the era of fentanyl amid a changing regulatory landscape. Leaders in the addiction field will present their recent research and build on prior studies to describe evidence on effectiveness of telehealth models for OUD care, recent policy changes and how they may impact telehealth for OUD care, and examples of new innovative telehealth models implemented in different settings to improve OUD care access and quality. This presentation will include perspectives from a diverse group of clinician scientists who practice in settings from the Veterans Health Administration, to academic centers, to telehealth companies and from specialty addiction settings to treatment integrated in primary care. Throughout all settings, we focus on considerations for evidence-based OUD care, including implementing harm reduction approaches and lowering treatment barriers. This symposium will provide critical research evidence and clinical insights to help the audience determine what constitutes high quality telehealth care for OUD and innovations needed in our field to address disparities in access to high quality OUD care.

Learning Objectives

Recognize key changes in federal regulations and guidance in the setting of COVID-19, how they are evolving, and what they mean for tele-OUD practices.
Describe the impacts of COVID-19 on telehealth and in-person OUD treatment and the evidence on telehealth (phone and video) compared to in-person care on patient outcomes.
Describe different models of telehealth and clinical considerations when using different models, including tailoring for patient clinical presentation and treatment resources.

Keywords / Topics

Telehealth
Opioid Use Disorder
Buprenorphine-Naloxone
Quality Improvement
Harm Reduction

Presenters

Lewei (Allison) Lin, MD, MSc, Chairperson

Dr. Williams is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University. He also serves as the Chief Medical Officer of Ophelia Health, Inc. a tele-health company for the treatment of OUD. His research addresses policy, health services research, and systems-based practice to improve quality of care for the treatment of Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) through medication for OUD (MOUD) under a Cascade of Care framework funded through K23 and R01 awards. His recent research resulting in a publication on quality measure development for OUD and engagement and long-term retention outcomes on buprenorphine reflect his expertise in measure development and critical stages of buprenorphine treatment which currently lack measures in the healthcare setting. He has recently been an invited guest expert to present on the OUD Cascade of Care and quality measure development for the NIH HEAL Initiative (June 2018), SAMHSA CSAT Council of Directors (August 2017) and the NIDA CTN (July 2018) on the opioid epidemic and quality improvement efforts. He is a nationally recognized expert on medical cannabis programs and state-level policy and has repeatedly developed symposia at the AAAP, ASAM, and NCBH annual conferences on the opioid epidemic. He also serves as the Director of the AAAP Area II (New York).

Eric Weintraub, MD, Presenter

Dr. Weintraub us a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine where he serves at the Director of the Division of Addiction, Research and Treatment and the Interim Director of the Kahlert Institute for Addiction Medicine. He has added qualifications in Addiction Psychiatry. For the past 15 years he has focused on treating individuals with Opioid Use Disorder and injection drug use with a particular interest in developing innovative telehealth programs to expand access to MOUD treatment in underserved rural areas in Maryland. He has received federal grant funding to support this work, published outcome data on his programs and has lectured nationally on the topic.

Judy Griffin, MD, Presenter

Dr. Griffin is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Addiction Medicine, and works as a primary care and addiction medicine physician at The REACH Project, Inc. in Ithaca, NY. She currently serves as the Director of Research at REACH and is the Director of the Rural Health Equity Training Collaborative (RHETC), affiliated with Cayuga Medical Center. Dr. Griffin is a core faculty member for the Cayuga Medical Center Internal Medicine Residency and holds an appointment as a Clinical Instructor in Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Griffin sits on the New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute Substance Use Guidelines Committee and also serves on the Criminal Justice-Alternatives to Incarceration Advisory Board for Tompkins County.

Summary


Availability:	On-Demand


Cost:	FREE


Credit Offered:	No Credit Offered

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