Emergency medical services targeting opioid user disorder: An exploration of current out‐of‐hospital post‐overdose interventions
| Autor: | Andrea J. Yatsco, Christine Bakos-Block, Tiffany Champagne-Langabeer, James R. Langabeer |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
intervention studies
Harm reduction Emergency Medical Services business.industry Psychological intervention review Paramedicine Review Article Peer support Drug overdose medicine.disease Outreach medicine Emergency medical services opioid Medical emergency outreach overdose people business out‐of‐hospital emergency care people.professional_field Medical literature |
| Zdroj: | Journal of the American College of Emergency Physicians Open |
| ISSN: | 2688-1152 |
| Popis: | Objective The opioid epidemic continues to escalate, and out‐of‐hospital emergency medical services (EMS) play a vital role in acute overdose reversal, but could serve a broader role post‐incident for follow‐up, outreach, and referrals. Our objective is to identify the scope and prevalence of community‐based, post‐opioid overdose EMS programs across the United States. Methods We used a narrative review of prior studies in PubMed and Scopus for the last 20 years (1999–2020) to identify relevant medical literature and a web search to identify gray literature of EMS interventions involving opioids. Results Out of nearly 22,000 EMS agencies across the United States, we found evidence of only 27 programs published in medical or gray literature involving post‐overdose interventions. They were most commonly found in the north and eastern region of the country. Although most of these programs incorporate harm reduction and education, other more innovative aspects such as linkage to outpatient addiction treatment or peer support services, are much less common. The most comprehensive programs involved combinations of innovative outreach, specialized referrals, integration with police and criminal justice, peer support, and even treatment initiation. Conclusions Out‐of‐hospital emergency care has the potential to provide more comprehensive care after drug overdose, but many programs either do not currently have such an intervention in place, or are not disseminating their practices for other agencies to assimilate. EMS protocols and policies that encourage greater adoption of active community paramedicine practices for opioids should be encouraged. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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