Opioid LAN's Focus
Leveraging the learnings from HAP’s Hospital Engagement Network (HEN) and Hospital Improvement Innovation Network (HIIN), HAP created the Opioid LAN to support member hospitals in making measurable improvements on the following goals:
- Decrease overdoses and subsequent deaths
- Increase the number of patients entering treatment
- Increase the number of patients starting medication-assisted treatment (MAT)
The Opioid LAN focused on the following aims:
- Increasing medication-assisted treatment initiation in the emergency department and warm hand-offs to medication-assisted treatment in the community
- Increasing direct warm hand-offs to community providers for medication-assisted treatment or abstinence-based treatment
- Increasing evidence-based OUD treatment and warm hands-offs for pregnant women through coordination with the Pennsylvania Quality Collaborative
- Increasing the number of direct inpatient admissions for medication-assisted treatment initiation from the emergency department; and medication-assisted treatment initiation of OUD patients hospitalized, overall
- Increasing warm hand-offs in primary care settings
- Increasing access to medication-assisted treatment in primary care settings
Opioid LAN Infrastructure and Member Support
The Opioid LAN infrastructure supported participating hospitals and health systems with:
- Annual in-person meetings
- Regional gatherings with facilitated information sharing
- Webinars and other distance learning technologies
- Collaborative website, metrics, and performance tracking
- Office hours and virtual small group discussions with clinical/administrative champions and technical experts
Year Two
On September 23, 2020, the LAN held the first of its year two regional convening. During year two, the LAN broadened its focus to advancing evidence-based substance use disorder care outside the hospital walls and aimed to improve practice at other clinical entry points while sustaining emergency department-initiated momentum.
LAN content and programmatic touchpoints for year two supported hospitals and health systems in increasing warm-hand offs in primary care settings and increasing access to medication-assisted treatment in primary care settings. LAN also worked to identify policy-related barriers to care, quantify reimbursement gaps, and financial short falls, and developed recommendations about meaningful funding structures and policy changes.