Chicago-based Cook County Health and Hospitals System is implementing several changes at its facilities to boost patients' access to medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction, a spokesperson told Becker's Hospital Review via email.
Here are four things to know:
1. CCHHS is training emergency department physicians to legally prescribe buprenorphine, so they can give the anti-addiction drug to patients who come into the ED for an opioid overdose.
2. Last spring, CCHHS launched a program to place certified alcohol and drug counselors in the ED to help screen patients and help direct them to opioid addiction treatment.
3. CCHHS now has MAT programs available at 11 of their clinics.
4. Through CCHHS' Cermak Health Service, patients in Cook County Jail are given free naloxone kits and trained to respond to an opioid overdose.
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