RWJBarnabas Health is expanding access to treatment and support services for those with opioid addiction or dependence thanks to new federal grant funding.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration awarded the health care system’s Institute for Prevention and Recovery a $3.75 million grant to support the implementation of the Medication-Assisted Treatment – Prescription Drug and Opioid Addiction Program (MAT-PDOA) over a five-year period. The funding will also establish “bridge clinics” at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in Newark and Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville.

The award will help to expand access to medication for opioid use disorder. The clinics, according to RWJBarnabas, provide patients with transitional medication between discharge from the hospital and placement in a community care setting.

“We are thrilled to be awarded this grant funding which will enable us to establish a bridge clinic, increasing access to medication for opioid use disorder and enhancing our ability to encourage patients to enter and remain in treatment,” said Connie Greene, senior vice president, RWJBarnabas Health Institute for Prevention and Recovery, and co-chair, RWJBarnabas Health Tackling Addiction Task Force. “The MAT-PDOA program will build upon our comprehensive harm reduction efforts and serve as another vital tool in our toolkit as we work to proactively address the opioid epidemic from all angles.”

The MAT-PDOA program aims to:

• Increase staff capacity to offer medications and comprehensive clinical services for individuals with opioid use disorder in Emergency Departments,
• Increase the number of patients that receive medication-assisted treatment, and
• Decrease illicit opioid dug use and illicit prescription opioid misuse.

RWJBarnabas says the program builds on IFPR’s harm-reduction efforts and the system’s Health Tackling Addiction Task Force, which uses a multidisciplinary approach to combat substance use disorder focusing on four areas: education, prevention, treatment and recovery. The IFPR Peer Recovery Program also distributes naloxone kits to eligible patients when they’re discharged from the ED through a partnership with RWJBarnabas Health’s Corporate Pharmacy Division and the Rutgers Opioid Overdose Prevention Network.

According to RWJBarnabas, the Peer Recovery Program has served more than 76,000 individuals since its launch in 2016.

In 2020, IFPR received $3 million in federal funding from SAMHSA to expand its work addressing the disease of addiction.

Lessons learned

Harrison native and former NFL quarterback Ray Lucas recently spoke to high school student-athletes in his hometown about the risks of prescription opioids. Click here to read the story.